This week’s long anticipated Latin American art auction held by Sotheby’s pitted two of Latin America’s greatest artists against each other: Fernando Botero of Colombia vs Frida Kahlo of Mexico.
By all measures Botero ended up the winner. His “A Family” fetched $1.4 million while his bronze sculpture “Man on Horse” brought in $1.2 million. Botero’s artwork brought in two of the three top bids of the auction. In total Sotheby’s raised $21.7 million from 56 pieces of art, setting a record.
Approximately one-third of this Sotheby’s auction revenue were garnered by Botero’s art.
On the other hand Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait aptly titled “Self-portrait in Miniature” failed to garner a winning bid – it was valued between $800,000-$1.2 million.
Botero remains one of Colombia best-known living artist while Kahlo, iconic throughout all of Latin America, died in 1954.
