The show, which runs until February 23 in the New York Gallery, brings together his sketches, caricatures, drawings, gouaches, oil paintings and maps, which are offered at prices from $1000-350,000.
Born in Mexico City to an upper middle class family, Covarrubias started his career producing illustrations for texts and training materials published by the Mexican Ministry of Public Education and went on to work in the theatre on set designs and costumes.
However, he is best remembered for his artwork and celebrity caricatures that featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair magazines. More than 300 of his caricatures of influential artists and politicians were features on the covers of influential publications.
He also studied fine are and anthropology and befriended influential figures such as Orson Wells, Merce Cunningham, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
“He was witness to one of the most exciting periods of the 20th century and remains an unmatched talent,” says the gallery’s Spencer Throckmorton.
Among his most successful works on the open market, according to the Art Sales Index, are his 1932 painting Offering of Fruits for the Temple, which sold at Christie’s New York for $1.02m in 2011 and the c.1934 Bather Holding up her Kemban, which took $590,500 at the same saleroom the following year. Both feature beautiful, stylised women, which also serve as a subject for some of his works on offer at the show.
