George Bellows: “Men of the docks”
Rufino Tamayo: “Trovador”
Sale of masterworks by Bellows and Tamayo blocked by Court
November 20th 2007 – The Virginia Supreme Court has blocked the sale of four important paintings from the collection of the Randolph College which were going to be auctioned at Christie’s this month.
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The works included a masterwork by George Bellows expected to break the auction record for an American painting, and a great canvas by Rufino Tamayo, which ranks among the greatest works by the Latin American artist.
According to Christie’s, Men of the Docks by George Wesley Bellows, painted in 1912, is a monumental masterwork by the undisputed leader of the Ashcan School. Polo Crowd, also by Bellows, and illustrating the American social set at play, established the world auction record for an American painting in 1999 when it realized $27.7 million. Men of the Docks, with its gritty, realist depiction of New York City at the start of a brave new century, is a classic Bellows subject. Expectations were high for this work, one of his most forceful and powerful achievements and the painting was estimated to realize between $25 to $35 million.
Rufino Tamayo’s Trovador (Troubadour), executed in 1945, is perhaps the least studied of the artist’s great paintings. Combining ideal subject matter of the guitarist with the artist’s signature brilliant palette and scale, this iconic work is the most important easel painting by Tamayo to come up at auction in more than a decade. Trovador, which had an estimated of $2,000,000 – 3,000,000 has the potential to break the current world auction record for Tamayo, which was set at Christie’s in 1993 with the 1955 painting, America (Mural).
The two other paintings which were expected to be auctioned were “A Peaceable Kingdom” (1840-1845) by Edward Hicks and “Through the Arroyo” by Ernest Martin Hennings.
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