Lot 225: Alejandro Xul Solar (Argentinian 1887-1963)

Alejandro Xul Solar (Argentinian 1887-1963)
Cine-Teatro
signed and dated 'Xul 1926'
watercolor on paper laid down on cardboard
6¼ x 8¼ in. (16 x 21 cm.)
Painted in 1926.

Anon. sale, Sarchaga, Buenos Aires, December 2003, lot 29 (illustrated in color).
Anon. sale, Arroyo, Buenos Aires, 2 November 2004, lot 73 (illustrated in color).
Private collection, Buenos Aires.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

This work is sold with a photo-certificate signed by Natalio Porvaché and dated 30 September 2001.

Solar returned to Buenos Aires in 1924 and was immediately drawn into the orbit of the Argentine intellectual vanguard, led by his friend Jorge Luis Borges and centered around the important ultraísta journal, Martín Fierro. Driven to unify Latin America on a metaphysical plane and contribute to Argentina's cultural resurgence, Solar found spiritual kinship with Borges in particular, their friendship kindled by mutual interests in esoterica and fantasy. "They talked of everything," the artist's dealer Jorge Natalio Povarché remembers, "and some of their conversations were conducted at such a high level, were so dazzling, that anyone listening in would be left almost in a state of levitation."(1) To Borges, Solar was "a man versed in every field of knowledge, curious about everything arcane, father of writings, of languages, of utopias, of mythologies, a guest in hells and heavens."(2)

Solar's prodigious poetic genius is manifest in his work on paper from this period, often in small formats and with brilliant accents of lustrous, jewel-toned colors. Cine-Teatro belongs to a series of architecturally inspired works in which the artist used geometric blocks of color to construct facades of buildings, creating formal rhythms and harmonies through sequences of color. Perhaps inspired by Bruno Taut's Falkenberg garden city (the "Paint Box Estates"), in which the architect applied expressive, idiosyncratic color to the façades and details of the buildings, Solar's cine-teatro is a marvel of polychrome design, its exterior walls built entirely out of pure colors unmarred by figurative ornament or decoration. A visual amalgam of avant-garde influences, from the brilliant chromaticism of Paul Klee to the Orphic abstractions of Robert Delaunay, Cine-teatro has a delightful countenance perfectly suited to the novel, moving images ostensibly shown within its hidden walls. The motley, kaleidoscopic palette is dynamic and playful, the sequence of diamonds rising layer by layer against a clear blue sky, re-imagining the façade as a whimsical, fantastic symphony of color.

1) J. N. Povarché, quoted in Larry Rohter, "Klee-esque spirit of Argentine visionary shines anew," The New York Times, 25 July 2005.
2) J. L. Borges, quoted in Rohter, "Klee-esque spirit of Argentine visionary shines anew."