Mario Carreño was a leading Cuban-Chilean artist and a central figure in the modernist art movement in Cuba during the 20th century. His extensive and stylistically diverse oeuvre ranged from neoclassical figuration to abstraction. Carreño spent his formative years abroad; he visited Mexico in 1935 and later travelled extensively in Europe during the 1940s. There, he drew inspiration from contemporary avant-garde movements such as expressionism, cubism, and abstraction. His growing international recognition—marked by participation in significant exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the 1940s as well as at the São Paulo and Venice Biennales—affirmed his role on the global art scene.

In 1957, Carreño moved to Chile at the urging of his lifelong friend, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He was offered a two-year contract to teach contemporary art at the Universidad de Chile and was later invited to join the founding faculty of the art department at the Catholic University, where he remained for the next two decades. Although he returned to Europe in the 1960s, he never visited Cuba again. For Carreño, Chile became a calmer contrast to the hectic life in New York, and he became a Chilean citizen in 1969.

The two works by Mario Carreño presented in this auction (catalogue numbers 932 and 933) stem from the artist's geometric period (1952–1962) and have a particularly interesting provenance. They were part of the collection of ambassador Harald Edelstam (1913–1989). The colourful Edelstam served as Sweden's ambassador to Chile from 1972 to 1973 and was deeply engaged both politically and culturally. In an effort to promote an artistic exchange between Sweden and Chile, an exhibition of Swedish art in Santiago was planned for 1973. The initiative came from President Salvador Allende, and Edelstam collaborated with Nemesio Antúnez, then director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, to borrow works and carry out the project.

In connection with this work, Antúnez presented a painting as a gift to Edelstam from President Allende. Antúnez hinted that there was a hidden surprise, but circumstances meant that this was not discovered until several years later. In September 1973, Allende's government was overthrown in a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. President Allende died in the presidential palace. Ambassador Edelstam was declared persona non grata by the new regime due to his efforts to protect the Cuban embassy in Santiago and to organise asylum for thousands of people fleeing persecution.

The artist Mario Carreño, who was born in Cuba, also fell from grace and was accused of hiding weapons in his home, which led to him being forced into temporary exile. Thanks to interventions from lawyers, colleagues, and friends, the decision was later overturned, and he was able to remain in Chile.

Ambassador Edelstam recounted these events in a letter dated September 1986 (a copy accompanies the painting). Upon his return to Stockholm, the true nature of the gift was finally revealed: it contained not one, but two paintings (lot 932 and 933) by Mario Carreño, framed together.

In 1982, Carreño was awarded the prestigious Premio Nacional de Arte by the Chilean government. Today, his works are included in prominent institutional collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile.

In 2026, Bonhams New York celebrated Mario Carreño alongside the 16 Cuban artists who exhibited at MoMA in 1944. The exhibition at the newly reopened Steinway House in New York was a retrospective and a tribute to the legendary exhibition "Modern Cuban Painters" from 1944.