Latin American Sales Show Robust Results

NEW YORK—Fernando Botero’s 141.5-inch-long monumental sculpture bronze Mujer Fumando (Woman Smoking) (1987) attracted so much attention from passersby outside of Christie’s, where it had been exhibited in advance of the house’s Latin American sales, that stanchions had to be erected to keep people from climbing on it. So it came as no surprise that the work would bring the highest price at the evening sale on Nov. 17, where it went to a U.S. collector for $1,142,500 (est. $800,000–1.2 million).

Otherwise there were few surprises at Christie’s and Sotheby’s sales of Latin American art last week, except, perhaps that they went so smoothly. The market showed strength; there was participation from the United States and Europe as well as Latin America, and there was strong competition on many of the lots. (Although we’re not quite back to the glory days of two years ago, when a smaller marble Mujer Fumando [1996] sold for $1,609,000 at Christie’s, lapping pre-sale estimates of $400–600,000.)

Between the evening sale on Nov. 17 and a day session the following morning, Christie’s earned a total of $17,338,250, with 180 lots sold out of 276 offered, for rates of 70 percent by lot and 87 percent by value. The pre-sale estimate for the sale was “in excess of $15 million.”

Botero had a good week, and a good evening at Christie’s in particular. In addition to the smoking woman, a large watercolor, Mother and Child (1990), sold there, setting a record for a work on paper by the artist at $614,500 (est: $450–650,000). Two charming early Botero works depicting the lives of saints in a Renaissance manner also did well: El Milagro de San Hilarion (1958–59) earned $290,500, and Vita de San Zenobia (1964) went for $242,500 (both est. $200–300,000).

Paintings by Wifredo Lam, Matta, and Rufino Tamayo were all among the top sellers in the evening sale, which brought $14,691,000, with 68 of the 76 lots offered finding buyers, for sell-through rates of 89 percent by lot and 90 percent by value. According to Virgilio Garza, head of Latin American Art at Christie's New York, there was a “global clientele” for the major artists, whose work moved well, for the most part. The major casualty of the evening was Tamayo’s Retrato de Olga (est: 350–450,000), which also failed to sell last year at Christie’s, when it carried a much higher estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. Perhaps the owner should hold onto it a while longer.

Sotheby's

Sotheby’s celebrated its 30-year-anniversary in an evening sale on November 18 that was highlighted by the Surrealist Endless Nudes, (1941–42) “one of Matta’s top five paintings from his best series,” said Sotheby’s vice-president Axel Stein, citing the painting’s elegance, introspection, and ambiguity. It sold to a U.S. collector for $2,490,500 (est: $2–3 million), the second highest price paid for a work by the artist at auction. The painting was last on the block at Christie’s in May 2003, when it fetched $1,687,500 (est: $1–1.5 million), the highest price in that sale.

Altogether, the evening sale brought $14,764,250, besting pre-sale expectations of $9–12.9 million, with 50 of the 58 lots offered finding buyers. (The sold rate was 86.2 percent by lot; 95.4 percent by value.)

The second highest lot was not a surprise to many who predicted that Brazilian buyers would compete heavily for Sergio Camargo’s Relief (1964). Some five bidders tried for the lot, which sold to an anonymous buyer for $1,594,500, soaring past its pre-sale estimates of $350–450,000 to wide applause in the salesroom.

Another greatly cheered sale was Cristóbal Rojas’s Le Lectora (Woman Reading) (1890), a painting that had been acquired from the estate of the major Venezuelan artist and descended to the consignor. It went to a telephone bidder for a whopping $1,172,500 (est. $350–450,000).