The entrepreneur who marked important records for Latin American art

Premiado por arteba, Eduardo Costantini repasa sus hitos como coleccionista

El empresario que marcó importantes récordes para el arte latinoamericano commenzo a comprar obras hace más de medio siglo, donó todo su accervo al Malba al fundar el museo en 2001 y volvoí empezar de cero; desde entonces acumuló otras quinientas piezas
"Un empresario paid the record for Pettoruti". With this title, on September 16, 1993, LA NACION announced that Eduardo Costantini had become the owner of the most expensive work in Argentine history until then. Antes de fundar el Malba, Consultatio y Nordelta, el hombre que acaba ser renónico con el Premio arteba al Coleccionismo paid three decades ago in the porteña casa de remates Sarachaga US$325,000 for La canción del pueblo (1927), pintura que se convertiría en One of the iconic pieces of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires.

La canción del pueblo (1927), the first painting with which Eduardo Costantini set an auction record

This last institution was born in 2001 with a collection of 223 works that were included in his personal collection. Desde ese momento compró otras quinientas, announced the expansion of Malba with another headquarters that will be inaugurated next year in Escobar and marked other records for artists of the region like Joaquín Torres García, Remedios Varo, Wifredo Lam and Diego Rivera.
A Frida Kahlo placed twice at the top of the Top Ten for Latin American art at auctions: primero con Autorretrato con chango y loro (paid US$3.2 million at Sotheby's, in 1995), which remained in that position for five years. y luego en 2021, cuando invirtió US$34,8 million en Diego y yo, en la misma casa de remates. Cifras muy distantes de aquellas primeras obras de Leopoldo Presas e Iván Vasileff que compró en cuotas en una galería de Acassuso, en 1968, porque no llegaba a los 2000 dollars que le dián por un retrato de Antonio Berni. Recently in the decade of 1980, with the advice of Ricardo Esteves, he started to invest in "museo quality" works.

No se quedó allí, sin embargo. In addition to acquiring key pieces of the history of Latin American art, Costantini seeks to achieve the strategic positioning of the art of the region in the cultural centers of the world. In the last few months, several works from his collection -curated by Florencia Malbrán- were presented at the biennales of Venice and San Pablo, important museums such as the Guggenheim in New York and the MoMA in San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pinacoteca de San Pablo. Next, the collector enumera algunos hitos que marcaron ese camino internacional.