The British-Mexican Leonora Carrington entered the pantheon of the most sought-after women artists, with the auction of her painting for 28.4 million dollars “The Distractions of Dagobert” at the spring auctions taking place this week in New York.
The work, a record for the surrealist painter at an auction, was acquired on Wednesday night by the founder of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (Malba), Eduardo F. Costantiniwho described it as “an iconic painting.”
“It is one of the most admired works in the history of surrealism and a masterpiece without parallel in Latin American art”he added in a comment sent by the auction house.
Costantini was already the bidder who took a work by the British-Mexican artist thirty years ago to its peak. “Now we have achieved a new auction record!” he exclaimed exultantly.
The work will be part of a collection that also includes, among others, two important works by Remedios Varo and another by Frida Kahlo, “Diego and I”, for which she paid $34.8 million in November 2021. taking Latin American painting to levels never seen before.
After an exciting 10-minute battle in which six people bid, two of them in the room, the audience burst into applause when auctioneer Oliver Barker’s hammer sounded announcing the award of the Carrington painting, which the house had estimated at between 12 and 18 million dollars.
This record places Carrington (1917-2011) “among the five most sought-after women artists, ahead of men like Max Ernst or Salvador Dalí,” according to Sotheby’s.
Along with Carrington and Frida Kahlo, this select club of female artists is completed by Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois and Joan Mitchell.
Carrington’s work was the second most expensive of the night dedicated to modern painting within the week of spring sales.
It was preceded on the podium by a “Rick” by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet, awarded for 34.8 million dollars to an Asian buyer.
Another star of the auction was the “Blue Moon” mobile, by Alexander Calder, sold in the room for 14.3 million dollars, also above its estimated price of between 7 and 10 million. It is one of the few works by this American artist in private hands and the first to appear at auction in 25 years.
The house of French-Israeli millionaire Patrick Drahi made sales of 235 million dollars this Wednesday, adding to the 234 million obtained on Monday.
On Tuesday’s evening at the Christie’s auction house, victim of a cyberattack, sales of $115 million in contemporary art were achieved, including pieces by the Cuban-born collector Rosa de la Cruz, who died in Miami in February.
A strip of lights by the Cuban-born artist Félix González-Torres was acquired by the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone in Japan for 13.6 million, marking a record for this multifaceted conceptual artist who died of AIDS in 1996 at the age of 38. . Her compatriot Ana Mendieta also achieved a new record with Mujer de arena, sold for $567,000.
The most expensive work of the house based in the Rockefeller building was “The Italian version of Popeye does not have pork in his diet” by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which sold for 32 million dollars, although far from the record of that New York artist died at age 27 in 1988, set at $110.4 million.
The small auction house Phillips sold another Basquiat for $46.5 million also on Tuesday, bringing the result of sales this week to $110 million, that room announced.
Auction houses entered this week of spring sales in an optimistic atmosphere after the good results in London and Paris.
They hope to exceed, at the end of 2024, last year’s $14.9 billion, which represented a 14% drop compared to 2022, although online transactions experienced an increase of 285%.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
