Latin American art auction fetches $11 million

By Walker Simon

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Latin American art works fetched a total of more than $11 million in a comparatively strong sale that set five world auction records for the artists, Christie's said.

Virgilio Garza, Christie's Latin American chief, credited the excitement about the Thursday evening sale to the top three selling works, all from the 1940s and rarely available to the market.

"That really brought people in," he told Reuters, "People flew in from all over."

A rediscovered 1943 masterpiece of Cuban modernism by artist Mario Carreno called "Fuego en el Batey," (Fire in the Farm), was the top seller at $2.1 million. A family on Long Island unexpectedly offered the work, whose whereabouts had been unknown.

Layered in thick swipes of industrial car enamel, it depicts a panic-stricken mother handing a child to a man on horseback fleeing a burning farm. Its swirling colorful arcs and the horse's blurred motion recall the Italian Futurists, Garza said.

Mexican Leonora Carrington's "The Giantess," sold for $1.42 million, setting a record for the English-born surrealist who is still active at 93 years old.

"The Giantess" shows a towering blond allegorically commanding flora and fauna, the earth, sea and sky, Christie's said. The work, set mostly against a watery background, embodies her fascination with mystical femininity.

A 1941 Diego Rivera self-portrait had a $1.02 million price tag. Painted at age 55, Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo said he looked like a frog in the piece, with his skin tinged with green and one eye drooping, according to Garza.