Roberto Montenegro
El Deseo de Volar

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Artist Roberto Montenegro (Mexican, 1885–1968)Mexican, 1885–1968

CultureMexican

Titles

El Deseo de Volar

Datec. 1929

MediumWatercolor with graphite on wove paper

DimensionsSheet: 11 3/4 × 9 15/16 in. (29.8 × 25.2 cm)

Credit LineGift of Andrew Feldman

Object number2023.456

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

DRAWINGS, PASTELS & WATERCOLORS

ProvenanceThe artist, c. 1929; collection of Alfred H. Barr (1902-1981), Jr., New York, to 19811; [Sotheby’s New York, 19th- and 20th-Century Latin American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 7-9, 1981, lot 162]; [Sotheby’s New York, Latin American Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Prints, May 18-19, 1993, lot 173]; [Helmuth Stone Gallery, Sarasota, FL, Important Modern, Fine Art and Antiques, June 3, 2023, lot 714]; purchased by Andrew Feldman, Chino Hills, CA, June 3, 2023; given to MFAH, 2023

1. Art historian Alfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. served as the inaugural director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, a position he held from 1929 to 1968, during which time he exerted significant influence on popular attitudes toward modern art. Interestingly, in the summer of 1942 Barr and MoMA colleague Edgar Kauffman, Jr. embarked on a buying trip—sponsored by $26,000 given by Nelson Rockefeller—to Mexico and Cuba, spending four and a half weeks in the former country and the final week and a half in the latter. Barr subsequently organized the MoMA exhibition Modern Cuban Artists, which opened at MoMA in March 1944. The online Finding Guide for Barr’s papers, which are held by MoMA, notes archived correspondence between Barr and Montenegro dated 1944 and lists Montenegro among the individuals from whom Barr received Christmas cards between 1938 and 1951.
Exhibition HistoryN/A
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Signed in ink, top right corner: MONTE / NEGRO
Verso: [inaccessible]

Watermark: None known

Catalogue raisonnéNone

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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