Rufino Tamayo’s “Troubadour” set a world auction record for Latin American art, fetching $7.2 million.
The 1945 painting, which depicts a musician strumming his guitar as two women watch, was acquired by an anonymous buyer, Christie’s spokeswoman Sung-Hee Park said.
The $7.2 million bid on Wednesday easily eclipsed the previous record for a Tamayo painting of $2.59 million and topped Frida Kahlo’s “Roots,” which sold in May 2006 for $5.6 million.
“This Tamayo is one of those things you only see once in a generation,” said Virgilio Garza, head of Latin American art for Christie’s, who called the sale “historic.”
“Troubadour,” which was sold by Randolph College in Lynchburg, Va., has not been on the auction block for more than 40 years.
The school had hoped to sell it to raise cash for its endowment last year, but pulled it from auction when a group of students and alumnae obtained an injunction arguing that the once all-women’s college could not spend decades-old donations on co-education. The painting was donated in 1949.
College spokeswoman Brenda Edson last month said there were no legal restrictions impeding the painting’s sale.
“Troubador” was part of a two-day sale at Christie’s that offered works by 145 Latin American artists from 14 countries, including Diego Rivera, Fernando Botero, Leonora Carrington, Claudio Bravo, Alfredo Ramos Martinez and Mario Carreno. Tamayo was born in Mexico.
The 321 paintings and sculptures up for sale reflected the region’s colonial, modernist, surrealist and contemporary periods — Christie’s “most comprehensive and most valuable Latin American sale to date,” Garza said.