Sandú Darié - Latin America New York Tuesday, November 21, 2017 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private Collection, Havana (gifted from the artist)
    Private Collection, Florida

  • Catalogue Essay

    Romanian-born Sandú Darié immigrated permanently to Havana in 1941, escaping the war in Paris where he had been studying. He is considered one of the foremost revolutionary Concrete artists, a movement that characterized the decade of the 1950s in Cuba. Although his early works reflected an expressionist tendency, Darié soon turned to geometric abstraction. In 1952, along with Mario Carreño and Luis Martínez Pedro, he founded the magazine Noticias de Arte—used as a platform to promote abstraction within Cuban modernism—quickly accelerating the consolidation of the Concrete movement.

    The present lot, with its mechanical construction and moving parts, is a masterful example of Darié’s novel style. As aptly elucidated by Abigail McEwen, Darié “challenges the fixity of line and color, directing their movement dynamically beyond the frame, implicitly displacing art into life” (Abigail McEwen, Concrete Cuba – Cuban Geometric Abastraction from the 1950s, New York, 2015, p. 7). Imbued with a geometric rigor reminiscent of Piet Mondrian’s Neoplasticism, this elegant work compels viewers to engage with its movable components to create various star bursts of black and white. Untitled (from the series ‘Formas geométricas móviles') is a masterwork that definitively denotes the pioneering theoretical scope of Cuban Concretism.

  • Artist Biography

    Sandú Darié

    Romanian / Cuban • 1906 - 1991

    Romanian-born artist Sandú Daríe was initially trained as a lawyer, but his exposure to the Romanian intelligentsia resulted in his choice of a painting career. After studies in Paris, Darié moved permanently to Havana in 1941. His works evince the basic tenets of Concrete art, a combination of planes, primary colors and form fused with geometric rigor stimulated by Piet Mondrian's Neoplasticism.

    His most innovative works include irregular-shaped canvases and structures with moving parts, connoting the principles of the Latin American MADÍ movement that wished to break from traditional painting and focus on the concrete and physical reality of art. Daríe was constantly preoccupied with space, light and color as well as with viewer participation in the motion, perspective and movement of his works.

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2

Untitled (from the series 'Formas geométricas móviles')

signed "DARIE" lower edge
painted wood assemblage
53 3/4 x 53 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. (136.5 x 136.5 x 8.9 cm)
Executed circa 1950-1969, this work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Pedro de Oraá.

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Sold for $81,250

Contact Specialist
Kaeli Deane
Head of Department, Americas
New York
+1 212 940 1352

Latin America

New York Auction 21 November 2017