華金·托雷斯·凱西亞

奧拉西奧·托雷斯，蒙特維多（購自藝術家之藝術遺產管理委員會）

安德烈·埃梅里希畫廊，紐約（購自上述藏家之遺產管理委員會）

羅亞爾·S·馬克斯，紐約（購自上述畫廊；身後售出：紐約蘇富比，「羅亞爾·S·馬克斯遺產管理委員會收藏－華金·托雷斯·凱西亞的19件作品」，1992年11月23日，拍品編號4）

購自上述拍賣

蒙特維多，托雷斯·凱西亞博物館，〈華金·托雷斯·凱西亞1874年7月28日-1949年8月8日〉，品號15，圖錄封面載彩圖

紐約，安德烈·埃梅里希畫廊，〈華金·托雷斯·凱西亞的18件作品〉，1971年

蓬特韋德拉，蓬特韋德拉博物館，〈J·托雷斯·凱西亞：構成主義作品〉，1996年，品號7，圖錄載彩圖

里斯本，阿帕德·塞內什-維埃拉·德席爾瓦基金會，〈托雷斯·凱西亞：構成主義作品〉，1996年，品號5，圖錄載彩圖

比亞里茨，美景藝術空間，〈構成主義精神的熱忱與理性：征服拉丁美洲藝術－丹妮拉·沙帕爾基金會收藏〉，2006年，品號32，圖錄載彩圖

馬德里，卡洛斯·德安柏利斯基金會及馬德里，當代藝術博物館第二展廳，〈探索南方：構成主義及拉丁美洲的其他藝術流派〉，2008年，6頁，圖錄載彩圖

休斯頓，梅尼爾收藏館及聖地牙哥，聖地牙哥藝術博物館，〈華金·托雷斯·凱西亞：構成抽象藝術風格的木作品展〉，2009-10年，品號62，圖錄載彩圖

紐約，現代藝術博物館；馬德里，西班牙電信基金會；馬拉加，畢加索博物館，〈華金·托雷斯·凱西亞：現代世外桃源〉，2015-16年，124頁，圖錄載彩圖

安歷克·雅迪，《華金·托雷斯·凱西亞》，巴塞羅那，1973年，品號229，圖錄172頁載彩圖

愛德華·沙利文，〈消除界限〉，《美國藝術》雜誌，2012年9月，圖錄50頁載彩圖

此作收錄於華金·托雷斯·凱西亞的電子專題目錄（www.torresgarcia.com），編號1931.85。

As this century ushered in a re-examination of the artists and movements in Western Art History, recent monographic exhibitions such as: Joaquín Torres-García: Constructing Abstraction with Wood at The Menil Collection, Houston and Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art reinforced Joaquín Torres-García’s importance as a modern innovator, recognition as the father figure of Modern Latin American Art, and most importantly, seminal in the creation of a post-Cubist language.

Already in a review of the 1931 Salon des Surindépendents, in Paris’ Porte de Versailles, where Torres-García presented works similar to Constructivo en blanco y negro con pez, the writer signaled him as the first promoter of “a new tendency” that he described as “a kind of constructivism in compartments, which consists of dividing the canvas surface into boxes according to an extremely sensitive geometric graphic rhythm that brought to mind the first cubist constructions.”

The elegant structure that divides the picture plane and the lineal symbolic figures as exemplified in Constructivo en blanco y negro con pez, executed in 1931, although thoroughly modern, has a timeless, classical spirit. It is a prime example of the new style that the French art critic identified. The universal man is a symbol for human kind; the key, a symbol for reason; the heart, for emotion; the clock, for time; the fish, life; the ascending ladder, the spirit; a vase, art; and the mask, for primitive art.

Torres-García was an artist whose life and work were connected to diverse and important movements in twentieth century European as well as North and South American Modern Art. Although born in Montevideo, his artistic education took place in the Spanish academy in Barcelona, where among his classmates, were Pablo Picasso and Julio González. Torres-García’s multiple roles as teacher and theoretician; his involvement with toy design; his early sojourn in New York from 1920 to 1922 where he sought the modern urban spirit; his years in Paris from 1926 to 1932 where he co-founded Cercle et Carré, were crucial to the development of Universal Constructivism: a concept that encompassed rational structure, emotion, and symbolic references to the world of nature. His later creation of the unique art workshop, the “Taller Torres-García,” and his validation of Indoamerican Art, make Torres-García one of the most complex and interesting modern artists.

Museum quality works by Torres-García rarely come up for auction. This is due, in part, to the seventy constructive paintings and works of wood that were lost in the 1978 fire that destroyed the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and also because his work is already in most major museums across Europe and the Americas. Recent purchases by the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, confirm the artist’s status as one of the major modern masters. 

Cecilia de Torres
March, 2018