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Friday, October 30, 2026 |
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| Rediscovered Leonora Carrington painting leads Heritage's Nov. 10 Modern & Contemporary Art Auction |
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Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), Fil d'Or, 1953. Grattage and oil on gessoed canvas, 13 x 8-1/2 in. Estimate: $250,000 - $350,000.
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DALLAS, TX.- A mysterious figure emerges where two golden lines intersect in Leonora Carringtons Fil dOr, a newly rediscovered 1953 painting coming to Heritages Nov. 10 Modern & Contemporary Art Signature® Auction. Authenticated by Heritage, the work was acquired from Mexico Citys Galeria de Arte Mexicano the year it was painted and has remained in the same family ever since.
Carrington created the intimate canvas using grattage, scraping through layers of paint to reveal underlying patterns. From that textured surface emerges an enigmatic, long-tailed personage confronting the viewer. Its title, French for gold thread, offers an entry into Carringtons private language of transformation and hidden meanings. Few examples of her work employing this Surrealist technique have appeared at auction.
Discoveries like this allow us to encounter a familiar artist from a fresh perspective, says Frank Hettig, Heritages Vice President of Contemporary Art. The Carrington has spent more than seven decades in one family, and its small scale holds an extraordinary imaginative world. Together with the rediscovered Whanki paintings, it gives this auction a particularly compelling sense of discovery.
Those two untitled Whanki canvases, both dating to the 1960s, illuminate a little-known chapter in the Korean modernists New York years. Each measures 20 by 16 inches and bears the unusual signature Kim rather than the artists customary Whanki. Their blocks, geometric lines and vertical forms evoke the streets and buildings of his adopted city.
The paintings histories trace back to Arts International in Philadelphia, where a Gladwyne couple acquired them circa 196667. Heritages research uncovered a contemporary newspaper account of a group exhibition featuring Whanki at the gallery, establishing a connection absent from his standard exhibition histories. The Whanki Foundation and Whanki Museum also confirmed that one painting was already recorded in their archive. Together, the works offer a revealing view of the artists evolving abstraction before his celebrated later dot paintings.
A very different transformation anchors Manolo Valdéss La Infanta Margarita (1992). Standing more than 7 feet tall, the Canarywood sculpture reimagines the young princess at the center of Velázquezs Las Meninas. The court interior and attendants disappear, leaving the broad dress, arranged hair and commanding silhouette through which the figure remains instantly recognizable. Visible joins, fissures and emphatic grain replace the painted finery with the physical force of wood. With provenance from Marlborough Gallery, New York, the sculpture turns a familiar image from Spanish art into an imposing contemporary presence.
Banksys Rat & Heart (2015) brings another distinctive artistic vocabulary to the selection. The work features a rat and a heart, two of the artists most recognizable recurring motifs. Executed in spray paint and emulsion on cut-out canvas and presented in the artists frame, the work is signed and bears the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament peace symbol on its backing board, a mark Banksy has used on personal gifts like this one.
Latin American highlights encompass expressive figuration, optical experimentation and bronze sculpture. In Oswaldo Guayasamíns Mother and Child (Madre y Niño), elongated arms and powerful hands encircle the child in a protective embrace. The 63-inch-high canvas concentrates its emotional force in that gesture, making the hands so central to Guayasamíns art instruments of tenderness. Acquired directly from the artist in 1963 by an early owner, the painting later entered Rafael Tudelas collection following its sale at Sothebys in 1981.
Also acquired by Tudela at that auction, Carlos Cruz-Diezs Physichromie 1065 (1976) makes color an experience that changes with the viewers position and surrounding light. Screenprinted aluminum and stainless-steel inserts create shifting visual relationships across its surface. Francisco Zúñigas black-patinated bronze Evelia con batón (1976) adds another dimension to the sections exploration of the human figure.
Sculpture is a particular strength throughout the auction. Joan Mirós Maquette de lArc de la Fondation Maeght (1962) carries the idea for a monumental environment within a tabletop bronze. The model for the arch created for his celebrated Labyrinthe at the Fondation Maeght transforms architecture into an organic, creature-like form.
George Rickeys unique Column of Eight Open Triangles (1982) introduces actual movement. Its stainless-steel forms shift independently, activated by a built-in oscillating fan a feature the George Rickey Foundation considers exceptionally rare and believes may be the only known example.
The sculpture selection offers an unusually rich conversation about material and space, Hettig says. Collectors can move between very different artistic approaches within this tightly curated auction.
Henry Moores compact Reclining Figure: Right Angles (1981) balances bodily curves with angular forms and openings, while Lynn Chadwicks Sitting Couple in Robes (1980) gives two seated figures a commanding shared silhouette. Lynda Bengliss Racer Series #28 Eagle (1989), constructed with stainless-steel wire mesh, sprayed zinc, bronze and silver plating, extends the selections range of materials.
European highlights also include Pablo Picassos Femme nue assise et enfant musicien (1966), a drawing in black crayon and graphite that brings together two enduring subjects through the freedom and economy of his late line. Marc Chagalls Adam et Eve explores the first couple through pen, India ink and wash on paper, joining his lifelong interests in love and biblical imagery. Victor Vasarelys nearly 6-foot-square Grand-Zûr (1976) adds a substantial canvas by a central figure in Op art.
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