Roberto Burle Marx Ink Drawing & Books, ca. 1980
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GUEST:
These are two books and a picture that my father was given by Roberto Burle Marx, who's a landscape architect down in Brazil.
APPRAISER:
And what did your father do for a living?
GUEST:
He was a botanist. He went around the world collecting plants. And he knew Roberto Burle Marx through collecting plants.
APPRAISER:
Which is really interesting because Burle Marx is known as kind of a jack-of-all-trades. But his main thing for what he's known is for being a landscape architect.
GUEST:
Correct.
APPRAISER:
And a botanist as well.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So there is that connection. And let's take a look at these books right away, I think it's really interesting to see these drawings that he made for your father, right?
GUEST:
Right, yeah.
APPRAISER:
So can you tell me what the one right over here says?
GUEST:
It says, "to Monroe Birdsey, my friendship and for our mutual love for plants, Roberto Burle Marx, 1977."
APPRAISER:
And that's a self-portrait of Burle Marx.
GUEST:
Correct.
APPRAISER:
Okay, and let's look at this one, too. This one says, "To Monroe, for our mutual love for nature, and principally for plants.”
GUEST:
“Your friend, Roberto."
APPRAISER:
And then this was dated in 1984. Burle Marx was a fascinating person, as well as a fascinating artist. He was known for anti-mimesis, which is really life imitating art more than art imitating life. But I didn't say that, actually Oscar Wilde did.
GUEST:
Oh really? (chuckling)
APPRAISER:
It's where artists teach us what to see in nature. So let's look at the drawing, for example. What we see in the drawing is abstraction. But in this abstraction there's a lot of organic type forms which talk to us about nature as well. Now Burle Marx was very, very famous for a lot of architectural projects, large-scale architectural projects in Brazil. One of the most famous that he did was the promenade in Rio de Janeiro.
GUEST:
Right. Yeah, on the Copacabana Beach.
APPRAISER:
On the Copacabana Beach, exactly. And that's probably one of the most world famous landmarks people will instantly recognize. And when you look at that promenade, for example, it has that same kind of curvilinearity, that same kind of non-repetition, that same kind of natural look to it. There's always like an interplay between life and art. Now, this was just one of his projects. He was also very famous for projects in Brazil, in Venezuela, as well as in America. I can tell you that the market for Burle Marx is a strong one. Brazilian art overall has gone up in value over the last ten to 15 years. The drawing that we have here, if it was sold by itself at auction, I would put an auction estimate of $2,000 to $3,000 on it. And that's a conservative auction estimate. Now, what we also have are these books, which are wonderful, and they're also self-portraits. In and of themselves they might not be so expensive, but maybe $500 to $700 each.
GUEST:
Oh really?
APPRAISER:
Yes, because you know, they also lend authenticity to the grouping, as well as to themselves. So if we put them together as one lot, I would put an auction estimate of $3,000 to $4,000 on the group.
GUEST:
Really? That's cool. Thank you. I appreciate it.
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