“It’s the opportunity that dictates the acquisition. And you can't let it pass you by,” says the billionaire real-estate developer and collector Eduardo Costantini of his latest purchase. Last week, Costantini, who is the founder of Malba (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), one of South America’s most important private museums, became the new owner of La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman, 1951), an imposing surrealist sculpture by Leonora Carrington, which was sold at Sotheby’s Modern Evening sale in New York.
With a feline face and human body, this reverse-sphinx stands at two-meters high. It last came to auction in 1994, when it sold at Sotheby's New York for less than $300,000. For decades it had belonged to the collection of the notable patron Edward James and was previously exhibited at venues such as the Tate Modern and the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
Leonora Carrington's La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman, 1951)
Courtesy of Sotheby's
Costantini won the work following a five-minute, five-person bidding war, secured the lot for $11.3m (with fees). “The piece was estimated between $5m and $7m. I joined the auction when it was at $6m, but unfortunately, it escalated very quickly,” he says. “My limit was $10m and as the bidding approached that round number, I noticed that the auction was slowing down. I could sense the other bidder was faltering.” The Argentine collector played his final card, offering $9.8m. "It seems the other bidder didn’t want to go for the round number. And luckily he stopped there." Early next year, La Grande Dame will be exhibited at Malba.
The work was made in collaboration with sculptor José Horna. That same evening, Costantini also acquired La marioneta (Caja de música), a unique 1956 piece by Horna, for $80,000.
Carrington has become a coveted figure at auctions, especially since the Italian curator Cecilia Alemani chose one of her works as the inspiration for the central exhibition of the 2022 Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams.
Costantini has in recent years become one of the most prolific buyers of Latin American Art. In May this year, Costantini bought Las distracciones de Dagoberto (1945), which set a record for a Carrington work, selling for $28.4m at Sotheby’s New York. This amount, however, does not surpass the $34.9m paid by the Argentine at auction for Diego y yo (1949) by Frida Kahlo, which remains the most expensive Latin American artwork to date. The small painting, a self-portrait of the iconic Mexican artist with Diego Rivera’s face painted on her forehead like a third eye, remained in a private Texas collection until 2021, when it changed hands. The previous owner had bought it for $1.4m.
Constantini with Diego y yo (1949) by Frida Kahlo
"It’s true that there’s a strong focus on Surrealism at the moment, and these acquisitions naturally bring more visibility to our collection. But I insist, the importance of the piece is what guides our path, which is a long one. You need to take it step by step."
Malba—which recently announced the appointment of the Brazilian curator Rodrigo Moura as its artistic director—was founded in 2001 with a collection of 220 works. According to Costantini, that number now reaches around 700 works, “plus another 700 from my personal collection, that's about 1,500 in total". As he explains: "I see it all as one. Mentally, I don’t distinguish between them. I view it as a single unit. The same collector, the same buyer, the same philosophy."
Among the highlights currently exhibited at the museum are Abaporu (1928) by Tarsila do Amaral, bought in 1995 for almost $1.5m; O impossível (1945) by Maria Martins, purchased in 1998 for less than $100,000; and Kahlo's Autorretrato con chango y loro (1942), the star of the collection, which in 1995 cost him $3.2m—which set the record price for the Mexican artist for the next seven years.
Other notable works in the collection include two by Remedios Varo, acquired in 2020 and 2021 (for $3.1m and $6.2m, respectively) and Baile en Tehuantepec (1928) by Diego Rivera, for which Costantini paid $15.7m at Phillips in 2016.
The collection's importance is, Constantini says, "reflected in the continuous loan requests we receive from international museums", such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) or the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. This year, five works—including Diego y yo—were featured in the Venice Biennale, curated by Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, who is also a member of Malba’s artistic committee.
In 2024, Costantini also bought works by Bolivian painter Alejandro Mario Yllanes (1913–1960), one of the first to incorporate indigenous designs into his work, paying $1.9m and $1.1m for two of his pieces. His repertoire also expanded with a sculpture by Colombian Rómulo Rozo (1899–1964) for $1.4m and a work by Mexican painter Nahui Olin (1893–1978), Diego Rivera’s muse, for $317,500. He also paid $25,000 each for two works by young Brazilian artist Dalton Paula (1982), whose work is inspired by Afro-Brazilian traditions.
According to Costantini, these acquisitions reflect meticulous research and a strategy encompassing auctions, galleries, private collections, and direct collaboration with artists and their heirs. Asked of his ambitions for the collection he says: "I don’t sell my works. The goal is to have the best collection of Latin American art in the world."