Sotheby’s Latin American sales open at $17.6million

Remedios Varo 1908 1963 HACIA LA TORRE detail. Image Source Sothebys.

The first night of Latin American Art Sales took place at Sotheby’s New York on 24 November, opening with a single-owner evening sale — A Vision Of Grandeur: Masterworks From The Collection Of Lorenzo H. Zambrano, during which 12 artist records were set and 85% of the lots sold, totalling $17.6 million, according to Sotheby’s: “a new benchmark for a single-owner auction of Latin American art.”

A work by Remedios Varo entitled Hacia la torre sold for  $4,309,000, of which the initial estimate was $2.5 to 3.5 million, making it the second highest price for a Latin American female artist at auction, whilst Leonora Carrington’s The Temptation of St. Anthony realised $2,629,000, a record for the Surrealist artist.

“Tonight we witnessed an historic sale as collectors fought to own a part of Lorenzo Zambrano’s extraordinary vision. The treasures in the sale ranged from monumental canvases by the Mexican mid-century giants, The treasures in the sale ranged from monumental canvases by the Mexican mid-century giants”, said Axel Stein, Head of Latin American Art at Sotheby’s.