Armando Morales - Latin America New York Tuesday, November 21, 2017 | Phillips

Latin America

New York Auction 21 November 2017

  • Provenance

    Claude Bernard Gallery, New York
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    New York, Claude Bernard Gallery, Armando Morales: Recent Paintings, November 19 - December 19, 1987
    Mexico City, Museo Rufino Tamayo Armando Morales: Pintura, (April-September 1990); then traveled to Monterrey, Museo de Monterrey (1990)

  • Literature

    New York, Edward J. Sullivan, "Armando Morales: Southern Visions of the Mind," Arts Magazine, (1987), no. 3 (illustrated)
    New York, Ronny Cohen, "Armando Morales: Claude Bernard Gallery" Artforum International, (1988), p. 142 (illustrated)
    New York, David Craven, "Armando Morales," Latin American Art, vol. 1, no. 2 (Fall 1989), p. 48 (illustrated)
    Armando Morales: Recent Paintings, exh. cat., Claude Bernard Gallery, New York, 1987, no. 1 (illustrated)
    Armando Morales: Pintura, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, 1990, no. 31, p. 61 (illustrated)
    Lily Kassner, ed., Morales, Mexico City, 1995, no. 116, p. 143 (illustrated)
    Catherine Loewer, Armando Morales: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné 1984-1993, 2010, p. 190 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Best known as Elvis Presley’s music publisher, Julian J. Aberbach and his wife Anne Marie amassed a remarkable collection of modern art. As the founder of the music publishing business Hill and Range, Julian J. Aberbach together with his brother Jean helped propel stars ranging from Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Edith Piaf to international fame. While working with some of the time period’s most renowned musicians, each brother also began to develop lasting relationships with a number of modern and post-war visual artists around the world. Themselves the sons of a successful jeweler in Vienna, both Julian and Jean spent time in Europe throughout the 1930s, where they became acquainted with the international contemporary art scene. After the war, Julian continued to make regular trips to Europe, where he later met Anne Marie. As early as the 1950s, Julian and Anne Marie had begun to collect pictures by various artists, not least on their regular trips to Europe.

    It was these worldly adventures that gave both Julian and Anne Marie a uniquely discerning taste in art that expanded far beyond the domestic scene in the United States. This international and varied spirit of collecting is evident in the following group of four works by Armando Morales, Darío Morales and Fernando Botero. The couple was known to assist these artists in various ways, be it hosting Botero at weekends in West Hampton or by lending Darío Morales a Paris studio. It is perhaps the same personal creativity exhibited by the Aberbachs throughout their collecting endeavors that is found in the work of Morales. Considered a key figure in Nicaraguan art and the Neofiguration movement in Latin America, Armando Morales often featured nude figures, tropical landscapes and metaphysical settings in his work. The present lot is a tour de force that explores a classical subject, tapping into sensual sentiments and evoking Cezanne’s famous bathers. The technical composition aestheticizes elements of voluptuousness and density, while the stylization evokes aspects of magical realism relating to the work of Gabriel García Márquez.

    Evidently, the following four works were hand-picked by Julian and Anne Marie for their unique place in the trajectory of 20th Century art. All by the renowned artist have been in the Aberbachs’ private collection since their acquisition, each a masterful example of the formal qualities for which these Latin American artists are known.

Property from the Estate of Mrs. Anne Marie Aberbach

21

Armando Morales

Four Bathers and a Dog

signed and dated "Morales / 87" lower right
oil on canvas
79 x 63 1/2 in. (200.7 x 161.3 cm)
Painted in 1987.

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $275,000

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

Latin America

New York Auction 21 November 2017