Rufino Tamayo: "Trovador"

Rufino Tamayo shines at the Latin American Art auctions

"Trovador" sells for a record $7.2 million at Christie's while Sotheby's makes $3.6 million with "The watermelon eater"

May 30 2008 - Tamayo’s Trovador (The Troubadour), 1945, is an iconic work by the artist combining the ideal subject matter of the guitarist with the artist’s signature brilliant palette and scale. The previous record for Tamayo was set at Christie’s in 1993, by the 1955 painting, America (Mural), which sold for $2,587,500. In the 1946 ARTNews review of Trovador at the Valentine Gallery in New York, the critic placed Tamayo at the height of his powers and hails the work’s “unbelievable color and supreme intensity of focus” and further adds that the magnificent painting “could successfully hang alongside Picasso’s Three Musicians.”

Trovador was acquired by the legendary American collector Stephen C. Clarke who gifted it to the present owner 60 years ago. Rarely exhibited and known to the general public only through a black and white illustration in Robert Goldwater’s monograph, Trovador has not been seen in the context of other Tamayo works in more than 40 years.

Sotheby's sale included the most important selection of paintings by Rufino Tamayo to appear on the market in several years. Tamayo’s El comedor de sandías (The Watermelon Eater), dated 1949, fetched $3,625,000 (lot 13, est. $2/2.2 million), selling to applause after several minutes of bidding to a buyer on the phone. This is the second highest price ever achieved for a work by Tamayo at auction. Also from the 1940s is El Constructor (The Builder), which brought 965,000 (lot 10, est. $700/900,000). Rarely seen works from the 1920s by Tamayo include Relojes (Clocks), 1929, which sold for $685,000 (lot 22, est. $325/375,000), and Naturaleza muerta (Still Life), 1924, which brought $505,000 (lot 4, est. $275/325,000), both excellent examples of Tamayo’s early interest in metaphysical surrealism. A later work by Tamayo is Matrimonial Portrait, 1959, which fetched $553,000 (lot 59, est. $300/350,000) and was sold to benefit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California.