Latin America

This year, Phillips will fully incorporate Latin American Art within its sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art amid an increasingly globalized market for the category. Phillips is committed to celebrating artists from this region in a larger context, and works of art formerly included in the company's New York Latin America sales will now be offered in Evening and Day Sales, as well as the New Now category, across the company's salerooms in New York, London and Hong Kong.

Phillips has previously offered several works of Latin American art outside of their designated sale category, receiving an enthusiastic response from collectors and setting many world records. Over the course of 2016 to 2017, Phillips twice broke the record for Carmen Herrera, first with Cerulean selling for $970,000 and then with Untitled (Orange and Black) selling for $1,179,000, both of which were offered in the New York Evening Sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art. Records were also set in the same sales for works by Mira Schendel and Hélio Oiticica, for $970,000 and $615,000 respectively. In May 2017, Phillips chose to include Fernando Botero's Fin de Fiesta in the Hong Kong Evening Sale based the rising demand for the artist's work in Asia. The painting achieved a strong price of HK$5,840,000.

Phillips maintains the world auction record for a work of Brazilian art ($2,225,000), achieved by Lygia Clark's Contra Relevo (Objeto N. 7) in 2013. In addition to these landmark achievements, Phillips holds auction records for artists including León Ferrari, Zília Sánchez, Lygia Pape, Amelia Peláez, Doris Salcedo, Olga de Amaral, Os Gêmeos, Jac Leirner, Antonio Dias, Roberto Obregón, Damián Ortega, Tania Bruguera, Tomás Saraceno and Nelson Leirner. Many of these results reflect our long tradition of outstanding success for female artists. In line with this emphasis, we have highlighted the transcendence of women in Latin American art and even produced a historic sale catalogue in 2015 that prominently featured two living female artists—Doris Salcedo and Beatriz Milhazes.

Phillips has greatly invested in the advancement of the Latin American market, appointing Vivian Pfeiffer as Deputy Chairman, Americas, and Head of Business Development, Cândida Sodré as Regional Director of Brazil, and Cecilia Laffan as Regional Director of Mexico. As we look to the future, we continue to position ourselves as market leaders for breaking down the boundaries between Latin American and Contemporary Art.