Diego Rivera – autorretrato (self-portrait)
A self-portrait by Diego Rivera lead Christie’s auction
Christie’s Latin American Sale in New York on May 28 and 29 will feature raremasterpieces spanning from 17th century Colonial art to Contemporary paintings. Important artistsrepresented include Diego Rivera, Leonora Carrington, Mario Carreño, Cundo Bermúdez, WifredoLam, Rufino Tamayo and Matta. The two-day sale will offer 276 lots and expects to realize in excessof $14 million.
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May 21, 2009 – A self-portrait by Diego Rivera will lead the sale (estimate: $1.2-1.8 million). Sigmund Firestone, anAmerican engineer and art collector from Rochester, New York, met Rivera and Frida Kahlo on abusiness trip to Mexico in 1939, and subsequently maintained a friendship and correspondence withthe artists, commissioning self-portraits from each.
Rivera painted himself approximately 20 times between 1906 and 1951, the year of his last knownself-portrait. In the Firestone portrait, the artist is depicted with unflinching realism and a matureself-consciousness. In the painting, Rivera holds a note, nodding to a nineteenth-century Mexicanportrait tradition, which reads, “To my dear friend /Sigmund Firestone /Diego Rivera /January 1, 1941.”
Fourteen letters exchanged between Rivera, Kahlo and Firestone are sold with the portrait. In oneletter, Kahlo affectionately signed the letter with magenta-pink kisses, one for “Sigy” and one eachfor his daughters, Alberta and Natalie.
One of the finest examples by Leonora Carrington, The Giantess, alsoknown as The Guardian of the Egg, painted circa 1947, is another leadingwork in the sale (estimate: $800,000-1,200,000)Mario Carreño’s Fuego enel batey (Fire in the farm), painted in 1943, dates to the artist’smost sought after period and is a tour de force within Carreño’soutstanding long trajectory (estimate: $1-2 million). Cundo Bermúdez’s Las comadres, 1942,illustrates two comadres sitting on a sofa; one is fanning herselfwhile the other knits (estimate: $400,000-600,000).
Five paintings by Rufino Tamayo are offered in the sale and spanhis prolific career, from the 1940s to early 1980s. Among theworks of art sold to benefit the acquisitions of Latin American Artfor the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are Tamayo’s ChildPlaying (Niño jugando), executed in 1945, (estimate: $500,000-700,000) and Diálogo, painted in 1971 (estimate: $200,000-300,000).Hombre con un farol, reveals all the elements that had propelledTamayo onto the international scene in the early 1940s, with theinclusion of the modernist fragmentation of form, poeticsymbolism, and his inventive experimentation with color and hue(estimate: $400,000-600,000).
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