MEDIA ALERT | N E W Y O R K | 2 NOVEMBER 2015 | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA MASTERPIECE, COMPOSITION NORD – ART CONSTRUCTIF LEADS CHRISTIE’S FALL SALE OF LATIN AMERICAN ART

Joaquín Torres-García (1874-1949), Composition Nord - Art Constructif, 1931. $1,500,000-2,000,000

Auction: November 20, 7 pm, Christie’s Rockefeller Center (Day Sale: November 21, 2 pm) Exhibition: November 14 – 19

New York – Christie’s is pleased to present a modern masterpiece by Joaquín Torres-García from the artist’s most sought after period in the fall Latin American Art Evening Sale in New York on November 20. Making its first appearance at auction, Composition Nord - Art Constructif (pictured above, estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000), has been in the same private European collection for the past 55 years. It has been exhibited occasionally in prominent exhibitions and biennials, including the Venice Biennale XXVII in 1956 and the Bienal de São Paulo in 1959, as well as at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 1970. The artist is currently the focus of a major retrospective exhibition at New York’s Museum of , on view through mid-February 2016.

Created while the artist lived in Paris at the height of his career, Composition Nord (oil on board laid on Masonite, 31 ¼ x 23 5/8 in, signed and dated ’31) serves as a virtual blueprint for understanding Torres- García’s theory of “Universal ,” his idiosyncratic vision of art. Following stints in New York, Italy, and southern France, Torres-García moved to Paris in September 1926 and quickly gravitated toward a group of artists exploring paths within —among them, Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo, and Theo van Doesburg. Torres-García’s first Constructivist paintings of 1929 evolved out of his engagement with this international avant-garde.

Long considered the father of South American modernism, Torres-García defined his mature practice around the ideal schema of the Neo-Plastic grid, whose geometric austerity—primary colors, straight lines—epitomized the totality of the universe and its highest, utopian vision. In its linear and spatial relationships, structured to embody an invisible, metaphysical order, he posited the oppositional relationships of the cosmos: male and female, material and spiritual, active and passive. Amid the tremendous interest in primitive art in Paris during the 1920s, Torres-García began to assimilate pictographic (“universal”) symbols within the grid, in order to express the humanist values reconnecting modern art to its ancestral and universal past. Recovered from pre-Columbian art, his ideograms became archetypal signs, transformed by geometry into a new paradigm for (Latin-, or alternatively his own Indo) American abstraction.

Torres-García soon consolidated this integral aesthetic—Constructive Universalism—in his practice, and he produced many of his most outstanding paintings in 1931. His repertory of pictographs was well established by this time, with signs ranging across the physical and spiritual worlds and distilling the emotions of space, time, and direction (as here: heart, house, clock, fish, anchor, ladder). In Composition Nord, these ideograms are arranged within shallow, rectangular subdivisions, their forms shaded by short, painterly passages in muted tones of red, blue, ocher, and black. Torres-García placed his signature above the sailing vessel in the upper left-hand corner, suggestively anchoring the grid from above; at the corner diagonally opposite, the inscription “Nord” suggests the inverted axis of his School of the South and its New World order.

In addition, the sale features another important example of Torres-Garcia’s constructivist period, Constructif avec poisson ocre, from 1929, (estimate: $600,000 - 800,000). Among other works for sale in the November 20 evening sale and November 21 day sale are a broad representation of artists, such as Matta, Fernando Botero, Rufino Tamayo, Claudio Bravo and Wifredo Lam, including a large number of exceptional works by some of today’s leading Brazilian artists.

Please visit www.christies.com for more information on the sale and a complete e-catalogue.

PRESS CONTACT: Melissa Abernathy | +1 212 636 2680 | [email protected]

Images available to the press upon request.

About Christie’s Christie’s, the world's leading art business, had global auction and private sales in the first half of 2015 that totalled £2.9 billion / $4.5 billion. In 2014, Christie’s had global auction and private sales that totalled £5.1 billion/$8.4 billion, making it the highest annual total in Christie’s history. Christie’s is a name and place that speaks of extraordinary art, unparalleled service and expertise, as well as international glamour. Founded in 1766 by James Christie, Christie's has since conducted the greatest and most celebrated auctions through the centuries providing a popular showcase for the unique and the beautiful. Christie’s offers around 450 auctions annually in over 80 categories, including all areas of fine and decorative arts, jewellery, photographs, collectibles, wine, and more. Prices range from $200 to over $100 million. Christie's also has a long and successful history conducting private sales for its clients in all categories, with emphasis on Post-War & Contemporary, Impressionist & Modern, Old Masters and Jewellery.

Christie’s has a global presence with 54 offices in 32 countries and 12 salerooms around the world including in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai, Zürich, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Mumbai. More recently, Christie’s has led the market with expanded initiatives in growth markets such as Russia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates, with successful sales and exhibitions in Beijing, Mumbai and Dubai.

*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium. Sales totals are hammer price plus buyer’s premium and do not reflect costs, third- party financing fees or application of buyer’s or seller’s credits.

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