A model Latin American

THIS has been a good year for Joaquín Torres-García, a Uruguayan artist who died in 1949 but whose reputation continues to wax. Last winter the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York staged a panoramic exhibition of his work; after summering in Madrid, the exhibition opened this month at the Picasso Museum in Malaga. Last November one of his large “constructivist” panels, as he called them, sold for $2.1m at auction, a record price for his work. A more intimate exhibition at the Guillermo de Osma gallery in Madrid showcases both his sketches and his craftsmanship as a maker of wooden sculpture and toys.

This interest in Torres-García shows that an artist who sometimes seemed behind his times was, in many ways, ahead of them. He was a bridge between Latin America and the diverse vanguards of the School of Paris. More important, he gave birth to a radical tradition of abstract and geometric art in South America. To outsiders, Latin American art means the Mexican muralists, Frida Kahlo and “indigenism” (the highlighting of pre-Columbian roots). But the abstract tradition is coming into its own. This week Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a collector, donated to MoMA 102 works of geometric abstraction from the region (see article).