Tuesday, August 23, 2011

GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE SURREAL ART

GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE SURREALIST ART

I have been contacted privately about an offering of works by a major surrealist whose work is little known. Antonio Gattorno (Cuban 1904-1980) created a large body of art, much of which is clearly Dali-inspired, but never derivative. Born in the same year as the Spanish Master, Gattorno developed a huge reputation in Cuba, was a close friend of Ernest Hemingway (who wrote a book about him) and John Dos Pasos. He then went to New York where he was supported by his wife and conequently did not develop a commercial career of gallery shows, museum exhibitions and publications.

When I appraised the artist's daughter's estate in 1995 (I was referred by The Salvador Dali Museum), I was stunned by the exceptional quality of the work and its relationship to the perceptions and theories of Dali. The Antonio Gattorno Foundation was set up by the artist's neice and her husband and in time they published a gorgious book titled Gattorno: A Cuban Painter For The World. Now, they are offering nine original works in various mediums at very reasonable prices.

In the Introduction to Sean Pooles book, Juan A. Martinez wrote, "The wonder kid of Cuba's art academy in the 1920s, one of the leading figures in the Cuban modernist art movement in the 1930s and a recognized painter of the New Romanticism trend in New York in the 1940s (photographed by Walker Evans), today Gattorno has become practically unknown." A look at the book or the website http://www.artbyantoniogattorno.com/ will show what an accomplished and diverse artist he was.

Can't afford a Dali? Take a look at Gattorno. Contact Terri Cabral or Sean Poole at http://www.agattorno/

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