Art Market Watch, Artnet - New York,NY,USA

SOTHEBY'S DOES $12.7 MILLION IN LATIN AMERICAN ART
Sotheby's New York held its two-day spring sale of Latin American art on May 24-25, 2005, and tallied a grand total of $12,756,400, with 78 percent of the lots finding buyers. The highlight of the sale was Diego Rivera's 1928 La Ofrenda, a naïve but haunting rendering of two children in the jungle, which sold for $1,584,000.
Sotheby's new Latin American art chief Carmen Melián noted strength across all three major categories -- the Mexican masters, Southern School Constructivists and the Kinetic movement -- as well as strong prices for Colonial works.

In a distribution that reflects Melián's analysis, the auction set new records for five artists: Joaquín Torres-García ($940,000, for his 1935 Constructivo en Blanco y Negro); Alejandro Otero ($162,000, paid for a 1957 Kinetic art construction); Carlos Cruz Diez ($57,000, for Physicromie #245, another Kinetic construction, this one from 1966); Juan Pedro López ($144,000 for La Virgen, Reina y Pastora de la Iglesia, 1780); and Fray Alonso López de Herrera ($102,000, for his 1640 Immaculate Conception, a ca. 21 x 15 in. oil painting on copper).

$8.3 MILLION FOR CHRISTIE'S LATIN AMERICAN ART
The Christie's New York Latin American auction on May 25-26, 2004, totaled $8,355,160. Of 182 lots offered, 111 sold, or about 61 percent. The top lot was Rufino Tamayo's Discusión acalorada (1953), which was bought for $867,200 (est. $500,000-$700,000); it came from the collection of Ruth and Harvey Kaplan. Fernando Botero's 1976 bronze sculpture, Sitting Woman, sold for $688,000 (est. $400,000-$500,000), a new auction record for a sculpture by the artist.
Virgilio Garza, head of the Latin American art department at Christie's, noted that the sale established new world auction records for several Latin American artists, including Raúl Anguiano ($156,000, for La espina, a rough-hewn rendering of a saint-like figure digging a splinter out of his foot with a knife); Pedro Coronel ($307,200 for La primavera, 1948); Enio Iommi ($24,000, for a Caldersque abstract wire construction, 1947); Victor Rodríguez ($20,400, for 2004 Photo Realist painting of a weeping woman in profile); and Carlos Amorales ($18,000, for a 2004 oil of a crow wearing a human skull on its head).

For complete, illustrated auction results, see Artnet's signature Fine Art Auctions Report.