Leonora Carrington, Sin Título (Untitled), 1964, est. $175/225,000

The fall sale of Latin American Art at Sotheby’s on the evening of November 18 and day of November 19 will be highlighted by Rufino Tamayo’s impressive mural, entitled America (est. $7/9 million), as well an impressive selection of Tamayo’s works from the 1930s, including the iconic Self-Portrait from 1931 (est. est. $400/600,000). Other sale highlights include important works by the Surrealist artists Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Alice Rahon.

One of the pioneers of modernism in Latin America, Joaquín Torres-García is strongly represented with works that span his international career. Additionally the sale will feature a special homage to his legacy with a selection of works by several of the key members of the Taller Torres-García, often referred to as the “School of the South.” For the first time, Sotheby’s will offer a selection of works by all four members of the influential Argentine vanguard group known as the Nueva Figuración – Ernesto Deira, Jorge de la Vega, Luis Felipe Noé and Rómulo Macció, active from 1961-65. Geometric abstraction is well represented with works by the Venezuelans Carlos Cruz-Díez and Jesús Rafael Soto, Chilean Matilde Pérez and the Argentines Eduardo MacEntyre, Antonio Asis, Hugo DeMarco, Gregorio Vardanega and Marta Boto, all of whom are known for their ground-breaking contributions to op and kinetic art movements. Contemporary art is represented with works by Sergio Camargo, Cildo Meireles, Guillermo Kuitca, Sandra Cinto and Beatrix Milhazes. The 276 works in the sale are estimated to bring $26,613,000 - 35,824,000 and the pre-sale exhibition will be on view at Sotheby’s 10th floor galleries beginning on November 14.

Rufino Tamayo’s America (est. $7/9 million, was originally commissioned in 1955 for the Bank of the Southwest in Houston and is one of the five murals executed by Tamayo in the United States and the only held in private hands. Coming from an Important Private Collection, this work has generously been on extended loan to the Dallas Museum of Art for the past fifteen years. At the time Tamayo painted this work, he was already regarded as one of the most important artists of his generation, as is apparent from a statement made by the abstract expressionist painter Barnett Newman, who greatly admired Tamayo’s work, in a 1945 article on Tamayo and fellow New York School painter Adolph Gottlieb. Newman wrote, “Tamayo and Gottlieb, by their outstanding example as men of thought, are making a contribution to the art of America of such importance that its impact will have a profound influence on the art of Europe.” Given the painting’s original location in Houston, a “gateway” between Mexico and the United States, Tamayo took the opportunity to present a hemispheric vision of the Americas and the richness of its natural resources – petroleum, water, agriculture and land. A figure of “America” reclines amid a landscape anchored on the left by the Spanish cross and on the right by Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent of Pre-Columbian cosmology and a bringer of enlightenment. “America” stretches in a gesture of happy repose, her white and sienna body forming a fertile soil that gives rise to a Grecian female figure and a dark-skinned male warrior, reflecting the convergence of the Americas. America is one of the true masterworks of twentieth century art.

A strong representation of Surrealist women artists, many of whom fled Paris during World War II and settled in Mexico, is headed by Remedios Varo’s Planta Insumisa (In Submissive Plant) (est. $1.4/1.8 million). Executed in 1961, it reveals Varo’s life-long fascination with science and nature. In this work of meticulously rendered imagery, a young botanist’s experiment has gone awry; the stems of the plants and the hair growing from the scientist’s head are inexplicably sprouting facts and equations. While the immediate subject of her painting is science, it also expresses a stance against authority, order and power, mirroring Varo’s own tendency to challenge accepted norms and forge ahead with a highly independent and innovative artistic vision. The fantastical scene in Leonora Carrington’s Sin Título (Untitled) painting from 1964 (est. $175/225,000) bears thematic resemblance to her short story titled “White Rabbits,” first published in the Surrealist journal View (nos. 9-10, 1941-42). In the story, Carrington subverts the status quo by transforming rabbits, the most docile of animals, into fierce creatures. Alice Rahon, whose work is rarely presented at auction, is included with her c. 1960 painting Los Cuatro Hijos del Arcoiris (The Four Children of the Rainbow) (est. $30/40,000). Rahon came to Mexico in 1939 with her husband, Austrian Painter Wolfgang Paalen, who organized the groundbreaking 1940 International Surrealist Exhibition held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano. Rahon, who had been a published poet in Paris, developed an abstract lyrical style of painting in Mexico, which combined primitive signs in landscapes infused with a playful spiritual quality reminiscent of Joan Miró and Paul Klee. Rahon will be the subject of a retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City in 2009. Other important Surrealist works include Wifredo Lam’s 1944 Figure au Bouquet (est. $150/200,000) and Augustín Cárdenas’ c. 1960-61 Plant Antillaise (est. $175/225,000).

An important selection of works spanning 1929 through 1945 by one of the key pioneers of geometric abstraction in Latin America, Joaquín Torres-García, is highlighted by Constructif avec rythme dentelé (est. $800,000/1.2 million) reproduced on the cover of the sale catalogue. Executed in 1931 during what was arguably Torres-García’s most fertile period, Constructif avec rhythme dentelé is a classic work from the artist’s Parisian years. Torres-García began exploring abstraction and other vanguard practices prior to his arrival in Paris in 1926, while living in Barcelona and New York. However it was most certainly his emersion into the Parisian cultural and intellectual milieu that marked his definitive embrace of modernism and the crystallization of his mature style. Torres-García was a founding member of the Cercle et Carré movement whose members included Jean Arp, Fernand Léger, Wassily Kandinsky, Kurt Schwitters, Georges Vantongerloo and Piet Mondrian. In Constructif avec rhythme dentelé, the pure structure of geometric abstraction is infused with a timeless language that asserts the universality and humanistic values of non-figurative art across all cultures and ages. Another work by the artist, Figuras universals a cinco tonos agrisados, 1943 (est. $500/700,000), represents a later period following Torres-García’s return to Montevideo where he established the influential Taller Torres-García. Painted with bright quadrants of red, yellow and blue, Figuras universals a cinco tonos agrisados incorporates the artist’s trademark pictographs or symbols rooted in his “Universal Constructivist” language. A selection of works by Torres García’s followers from the “School of the South” is being sold to benefit the Museo Gurvich in Montevideo, highlighted by José Gurvich’s Personajes Construídos, c. 1961 (est. $80/100,000) and Julio Alpuy’s El Principio II, from 1965 (est. $40/60,000).

The vanguard group known as La Otra figuración or La Nueva figuración emerged in Buenos Aires in the early 1960s and served as a catalyst for reinvigorating painting and redefining the approach to the figure. Reminiscent of the CoBRA movement in Europe in the late 1940s, the Nueva ficuración group represented a transition and a significant rupture from traditional modernist practices associated with painting. For the first time ever, the sale will feature works by all four members of the group: Jorge de la Vega, Doble Emplazamiento, 1965 (est. $250/350,000); Luis Felipe Noé, Tres Testimonios Sobre la Aparición de un Pájaro, 1963 (est. $80/120,000); Ernesto Deira, En Torno al Pensamiento A, 1964 (est. $70/90,000); and Rómulo Macció, Los Casilleros, 1962 (est. $80/100,000).

The enduring presence of the figure in post-War and contemporary art is represented with works by a number of artists including Fernando Botero, Personnages de Théâtre from 1980 (est. $400/600,000) and the 1985 bronze Man on Horse (est. $550/750,000). Additionally the sale includes Tomás Sánchez’s Cascada y Contemplador, 1996 (est. $400/600,000); Julio Larraz’s 2004 painting Diva (est. $125/175,000); Claudio Bravo’s Anunciación (Vanitas) from 1992 (est. $550/750,000); Armando Morales’ Circo from 1981 (est. $300/400,000); and a rare 1976 onyx sculpture by Francisco Zúñiga of a reclining nude, Desnudo acostado (est. $200/300,000).

The sale will present important works by several Brazilian modern and contemporary artists, including a Cândido Portinari painting dated c. 1945 Homen com Chapeu (est. $80/100,000); Emiliano di Cavalcanti’s early c. 1925 double-sided large-scale watercolor Mulatas (est. $60/80,000); the modernist Alfredo Volpi’s 1970 tempera painting, Bandeirinhas (est. $60/80,000); and an exceptional wood relief from 1967 by Sergio Camargo, Triptique No. 155, 156 and 157 ($300/400,000). Some of Brazil’s leading contemporary artists are represented, including Sandra Cinto’s surrealist-inspired intricate carvings on wood with Untitled (2 Columns) (est. $50/70,000); Beatriz Milhazes with Unititled (est. $70/90,000), a rare and early fiberglass sculpture from 1987; and the conceptual artist Cildo Meireles with a 1999 mixed media work, Coracão Faquir-1 (est. $100/150,000). Made from basic construction supplies – wood, paint and nails - Coracão Faquir-1 consists of a large red heart pierced by hundreds of nails. A highly symbolically charged work, Coracão Faquir-1 suggests references to love, passion, pain, sacrifice and spiritual transcendence. Meireles, one of the most important and influential artists of his generation, is currently the subjet of a major retrospective at the Tate Modern in London.