Also leading the Evening Sale is the greatest work by Wifredo Lam ever to appear at auction: Omi Obini from 1943, which is estimated to sell for $8/12 million – the highest pre-sale auction estimate ever placed on a work by the artist. The work is part of The Vanguard Spirit, a groundbreaking selection of works from one of the most distinguished private collections of Surrealist and Modern art from Latin America that will feature across our marquee sales of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art this June.

Magnificent in both its scale and spectacular use of color, Omi Obini exemplifies the apex of Lam’s fully realized aesthetic vision. Following the onset of the Second World War, the artist returned to his native Cuba in 1941 after spending 17 years abroad in Europe. Working in tandem and within the circle of Andre Bretón’s Surrealists as well as other avant-garde European artists, Lam pursued the development of a uniquely stunning visual vocabulary. His return to Cuba and the country’s lush tropical landscape along with its vibrant Afro-Cuban culture drove Lam to create an inspired vision, synthesizing mystical and organic elements, all of which are fully realized in Omi Obini. A testament to its sheer brilliance, the present work is only comparable to Lam’s lauded masterwork painting The Jungle, also executed during the critical year of 1943, and currently on view as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Sotheby’s has a distinguished history of presenting works by Wifredo Lam, having achieved three of the artist’s top auction prices. Lam’s current auction record was established in December 2017, when Sotheby’s Paris sold A Trois centimètres de le Terre from the collection of Alain & Candice Fraiberger for $5.2 million.

SURREALIST MASTERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The Evening Sale is further distinguished by an exceptional selection of Surrealist works from René Magritte and Joan Miró, as well as one of the most important collections of Surrealist paintings ever to come to market from The Vanguard Spirit. René Magritte’s Le Sens propre (pictured above, estimate $2.5/3.5 million) was painted in 1929 while the artist was living in Paris and experienced a period of immense creativity that resulted in some of his most famous works, all the while Surrealism flourished around him in the city. Le Sens propre, translated as “the literal meaning,” belongs to a series of six word paintings that exemplifies the artist’s interest in linguistic and pictorial systems of representation, as well as the arbitrary structure of language. Throughout the series, Magritte replaces objects with indeterminate shapes containing words intended to signify their identity, and these seemingly randomly chosen words subvert the everyday meanings attached to them.

The Vanguard Spirit also features outstanding works by women Surrealists, including Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and more. Among the group are two oils by Remedios Varo: Armonía from 1956 (pictured above, estimate $2/3 million) and Microcosmos (or Determinismo) from 1959 (estimate $1.5/2 million). Exemplary of Varo’s signature fantastical imagery and complex narratives, these intricate works were realized in the final years of her short life. Imbuing a hallucinatory and meditative energy, Armonía poetically captures the artist’s pictorial universe through intricately woven symbols and a compulsive attention to detail. The result is a work that suggests Varo’s own spiritual quest through painting. In Microcosmos (or Determinismo), Varo further reveals the scientific, philosophical and spiritual principles that are central to her thinking, and the work evidences the sophistication of Varo’s singular artistic expression.

Leonora Carrington's Tuesday (estimate $700/900,000), painted in 1946, emerges from a critical decade for the artist following her relocation to Mexico in 1942 after observing the horrors of World War II in Europe, and further illustrates the development of her autonomous artistic identity after the dissolution of her relationship with the Surrealist, Max Ernst. The painting reconnects with Carrington’s Celtic roots and the mythic tales of her childhood, and saw her experimenting with decalcomania and egg tempera to create medieval, jewel-like tapestries that reflect the otherworldly quality of her complex, conceptual visual language.

Leonor Fini's Women on the Terrace from 1938 (estimate $400/600,000) embodies her painterly vision of a world in which women reign. Known for her fiercely independent and flamboyant personality—she always remained at a distance from the Surrealist group proper—Fini imbued her works with a pioneering feminist sensibility that is reflected in her portrayal of an “erotic dream world in which women are in control.” Recalling the precise stylization and restrained palette of Mannerist art that Fini greatly admired, the painting’s attention to dramatic setting and detail is also a reminder of her extensive work designing stage sets and costumes, crafting a world all her own.

Frida Kahlo’s Congreso de los pueblos por la paz (estimate $400/600,000) and Alice Rahon's Los cuatro hijos del arcoiris from 1960 (estimate $120/180,000) round out this enigmatic group. Separate release available.