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Lot Essay
Revered for his ability to represent a harmonious mélange of the ancient and the modern through his eloquently universal compositions, Joaquín Torres-García was a true proponent of the international avant-garde, having lived throughout Europe and the Americas during the early 20th Century. This exciting group of works from an important European family displays two distinct examples of his work, one from his period in Paris, dating to 1928, the other from 1937, after his return to Montevideo almost a decade later, reflecting the breakthrough of his mature style that would synthesise his simultaneous influences of cubism, neo-plasticism, classicism and pre-colombian art. A consummately eloquent theorist and teacher, Torres-García published extensively throughout his life, producing hundreds of articles and delivering as many lectures, with close friends Joan Miró, Jean Hélion and dubbing him “Maestro” as a result.
Having lived throughout Italy and Villefranche-sur-mer, Torres-García arrived in Paris in 1926 whereupon he would become immersed in the avant-garde scene. Having investigated Cubism and Fauvism in the years prior, he had returned to classicism during his stay in the Villefranche-sur-mer, returning to the fresco format. An important exhibition of New World art was held in Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1928 entitled Ancient Art of the Americas which provided a revelation for the artist. Friso (the previous lot in this sale) reflects the dual influences of pre-colombian art with the fresco format, depicting a monumental village scene in bold, formal simplicity.
His years in Paris would also bring the artist into contact with neo-plasticism and the forerunners of the De Stijl movement, namely Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Georges Vantongerloo who would influence his practice. The following year, in 1929, he began his first ventures into abstraction, investigating the grid, however he soon found that there was an element of humanism lacking in his purely-abstract work that he sought to rectify. As Abby McEwen comments:
“Torres-García defined his mature practice around the ideal schema of the Neo-Plastic grid, whose geometric austerity—primary colours, 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. Neo-Plasticism offered rigorous logic and spiritual transcendence, but by the end of 1930 Torres-García no longer believed that its purified forms could adequately express the humanist values needed to reconnect modern art to its ancestral and universal past. Amid the tremendous interest in primitive art in Paris during the 1920s, he began to recognize affinities between aspects of pre-Columbian art and avant-garde European abstraction.” (see Exh. Cat., Christie’s, New York, 20 November 2015, lot 8.)
Composición constructiva conveys the results of this realisation, since his breakthrough works of 1931, featuring archetypal imagery of the natural and man-made world in his own language of hieroglyphs, organised within the organisational format of the grid. A perfectly balanced, gem, Composición constructiva represents the artist in the ‘thirties, at the peak of his career, linking languages of past and present into a universal synchronicity.
Having lived throughout Italy and Villefranche-sur-mer, Torres-García arrived in Paris in 1926 whereupon he would become immersed in the avant-garde scene. Having investigated Cubism and Fauvism in the years prior, he had returned to classicism during his stay in the Villefranche-sur-mer, returning to the fresco format. An important exhibition of New World art was held in Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1928 entitled Ancient Art of the Americas which provided a revelation for the artist. Friso (the previous lot in this sale) reflects the dual influences of pre-colombian art with the fresco format, depicting a monumental village scene in bold, formal simplicity.
His years in Paris would also bring the artist into contact with neo-plasticism and the forerunners of the De Stijl movement, namely Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Georges Vantongerloo who would influence his practice. The following year, in 1929, he began his first ventures into abstraction, investigating the grid, however he soon found that there was an element of humanism lacking in his purely-abstract work that he sought to rectify. As Abby McEwen comments:
“Torres-García defined his mature practice around the ideal schema of the Neo-Plastic grid, whose geometric austerity—primary colours, 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. Neo-Plasticism offered rigorous logic and spiritual transcendence, but by the end of 1930 Torres-García no longer believed that its purified forms could adequately express the humanist values needed to reconnect modern art to its ancestral and universal past. Amid the tremendous interest in primitive art in Paris during the 1920s, he began to recognize affinities between aspects of pre-Columbian art and avant-garde European abstraction.” (see Exh. Cat., Christie’s, New York, 20 November 2015, lot 8.)
Composición constructiva conveys the results of this realisation, since his breakthrough works of 1931, featuring archetypal imagery of the natural and man-made world in his own language of hieroglyphs, organised within the organisational format of the grid. A perfectly balanced, gem, Composición constructiva represents the artist in the ‘thirties, at the peak of his career, linking languages of past and present into a universal synchronicity.