It has been a whirlwind week for the Latin American art market, full of both new records and a few high-profile buy-ins. Newcomers in the first category include Matta, Wifredo Lam, Jesus Rafael Soto, Armando Reveron.
At Phillips de Pury on Monday evening, Brazilians had a good run, especially Neo-Concretist Hélio Oiticia. Two works from his "Metaesquema" series (1958), number 169 and 179, sold for $230,500 and $266,500, respectively. However, the auction as a whole suffered from a high buy-in rate. Overall, only 61 percent of lots sold, with a 66 percent sell-through rate by value. The top lot of the $3.5 million sale was Fernando Botero's white marble sculpture "Reclining Woman with Drapery" (2004), which hammered down at a respectable $722,500, in the mid-rnage of the $600,000-800,000 pre-sale estimate. The insanely popular Colombian artist, though accounting for the top two works in the sale, wasn't a hit across the board. With buyers likely put off by the incredibly recent date on "Lying Woman" (2009), the reclining nude sculpture in bronze failed to sell, despite its considerably lower estimate of $180,000-250,000.
The most successful sale of the week was at Christie's on Tuesday, where 222 lots fetched $27.7 million, with 74 percent sold by lot and 84 percent by value. The star work was a 1944 abstract painting by Chilean modernist Matta, which had never before been sent to auction. "La révolte des contraires" was touted by department head Virgilio Garza as "one of the best [Mattas] that has ever been offered" in an interview with ARTINFO prior to the sale. Estimated at $1.8-2.5 million, it was sold for just over $5 million — a record for the artist and the third-highest price for a work in the Latin American category. Records were also set for the work of Brazilian artist Candido Portinari, Argentinian Emilio Pettoruti, and Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez, showing a pan-national enthusiasm for Latin American artists, and particularly Latin American art from the modern period. All works that set records at Christie's were more than 45 years old — most were painted in the 1940s, and the latest, Cruz-Diez's "Physichromie 164," was completed in 1965.
Wednesday at Sotheby's was a mixed bag in that the $21.8 million sale was the highest result ever in the category for the auction house, but was dragged down slightly by a high-profile buy-in of a rare Diego Rivera painting. Overall it was 82 percent sold by lot, but only 73 percent by value. Cuban Surrealist Lam's 1944 "Ídalo" canvas brought $4.6 million from a South American buyer (est. $2-3 million), a record for the artist at auction. But bidding for the much-hyped Rivera cover lot, "Niña en Azul y Blanco" (1939), stalled at $3.7 million. It wasn't enough to break the reserve (minimum price the seller will accept) on the estimated $4-6 million painting. However, according to Reuters, several Latin American buyers stepped up after the sale, hoping to score a private deal for the work.
To see more works from this week's Latin American auctions, click the slide show.