Lot 50: ARMANDO REVERÓN (1889-1954)

ARMANDO REVERÓN (1889-1954) DESNUDO signed and dated +8 lower right pastel, charcoal, and chalk on paper laid down on board 26 by 32 1/2 in. 66 by 82.5 cm Executed in 1948.

Caracas, Museo de Bellas Artes, Exposición Retrospectiva de Armando Reverón, July 1955, no. 257

Alfredo Boulton, Reverón, Milan, 1979, p. 94, illustrated
Juan Calzadilla, Armando Reverón, Caracas, 1991, no. 419, p.335, illustrated

Franziska Tugendhat de Igler, Caracas (acquired from the artist)
Doris Igler de Boesner, Caracas (by descent from previous owner)
Acquired from the above by the present owners

There are at least 4 variations of this composition that were painted between 1945 and 1948. The better known of these versions, executed circa 1945, made Reveron the winner of the Premio Nacional de Arte in 1953 and it is now in the collection of the Galeria de Arte Nacional in Caracas. The figure of this award winning painting is turned to the right and crosses the canvas in a diagonal. This version has the model looking to the left but it is in essence the same pose although it exhibits a more mysterious quality. In 1948 and 1949, the last two productive years of his artistic life, the drawing qualities became more agitated as rapid strokes of charcoal and pastels animate an otherwise serene composition.

It is also interesting to know–pour la petite histoire--that Franziska Tugendhat Igler acquired this powerful Nude with another large drawing directly from the artist in one of the visits she did to Macuto. The first drawing, a majestic standing nude was sold at Sala Mendoza in Caracas in the 1980's. Mrs Tugendhat arrived to Venezuela in 1941 as a war refugee with her brother Fritz Tugendhat who had commissioned the Tugendhat Villa (now in the UNESCO World Heritage list) to Mies van der Rohe in Brno in the Czech Republic in 1930. Mrs Tugendhat was also an amateur photographer who left a small series of photos of Reverón, his companion Juanita and the Macuto house dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s.