It’s not that Cisneros—who, with her husband, Venezuelan media magnate Gustavo Cisneros, is among the world’s most influential collectors of Latin American art—doesn’t enjoy the dramatic, figurative work that many people in the United States reflexively think of. Rather, Cisneros chooses to focus on geometric abstraction. A native of Caracas, she favors pieces by artists like Joaquin Torres-Garcia and Jesus Soto because they call to mind the art she grew up with during the height of modernism in the 1950s. As a collector, Cisneros finds satisfaction tracking down art from schools such as Arte Concreto that flowered at the same time as the more widely recognized figurative art.

WIFREDO LAM’S 5 Centimetros Sobre La Tierra sold for $688,000 at Sotheby’s last November. (Photograph by Sotheby’s.)

"What was fun about creating the collection of geometric abstraction was that it was done at a time of absolutely no interest in this type of art," she says. "It was exciting to go into galleries, and they would have to go way into the back and dust off all these works."

However, Cisneros says that today she probably would not attempt to amass such a collection because of soaring prices. Twenty years ago, she and her husband spent at most $10,000 for an abstract piece; Cisneros says these pieces would now command from $300,000 to $600,000. Last year alone, Sotheby’s sold $40 million worth of Latin American art, compared to $16.3 million a decade earlier. In Sotheby’s November 2006 sale, two works sold for more than $1 million each; the cover lot, a painting by Colombian Fernando Botero, hit $1.7 million. A piece by the Mexican-born abstract painter Gunther Gerzso from 1957 fetched $620,800—a record for the artist at auction.

The boom in Latin American art, particularly by contemporary artists, reflects surging demand from wealthy Latin American buyers and new interest from non-Latin collectors. The increasing population of Latinos in the United States plays a key role as well. A growing group of successful Latinos connect to their roots by buying Latin American art. Meanwhile, museums, particularly in the Southwest, that neglected the category in recent decades acquire the pieces partly to appeal to the rising Hispanic population. "In the beginning, it was much more segmented, but now some of the top bidders in our auctions are not even Latin American," says Maria Bonta de la Pezuela, director of Latin America at Sotheby’s. "People bring their eyes and tastes, and buy what moves them—and that has nothing to do with the fact that the palm tree in a painting reminds them of the house where they grew up."

GUNTHER GERZSO’S Paisaje went for $620,800 at the same auction.

Although the region encompasses the entire territory south of the Rio Grande, buyers compete for an extremely limited supply of works. In the early 20th century, for example, there were far fewer artists in Mexico producing far fewer paintings than in the United States. After the revolution, no art market even existed. Collector Lance Aaron, an American who lives with his Mexico-born wife and children in Mexico City, is known as one of the world’s premier collectors of early 20th century Mexican modern paintings, sculpture and folk/popular arts. He estimates that there are fewer than 1,000 museum-quality pieces by Mexican artists from the years 1920 to 1950, and similar situations exist in other Latin American countries. Latin American museums have already snatched up many of the great pieces, and those that do become available often change hands privately, rather than appear in public auctions.

Yet Latin American art remains attractive to collectors because of the diversity of the works—and the bargain prices compared to other contemporary art. Works by Cuban artist Wifredo Lam provide a case in point. At Sotheby’s November sale, an anonymous bidder paid $688,000—double the high estimate—for Lam’s 1955 painting 5 Centimetros Sobre La Tierra. Yet aficionados revere Lam for his sophisticated cubist paintings, which many consider on par with those of his friend and contemporary, Pablo Picasso, who routinely fetches millions.

The same comparison holds true for well-established Latin American artists and contemporary American artists. New York–based dealer Mary-Anne Martin, whom many credit with launching the market for Latin American art in the U.S. by organizing the first such sale at Sotheby’s in the late 1970s, believes that the run-up in prices for work by contemporary American artists such as Jeff Koons and Lisa Yuskavage makes more-affordable Latin American artists, whose popularity has endured for decades, appealing. "This is a market where there are tried and true artists whose work represents a more established and secure purchase than work by younger artists," she says.

Faux Fever
The scarcity and surging demand that pump-up prices also contribute to one of this market’s biggest challenges: rampant fakes. Insiders in the Latin American art world say these counterfeits are exceptional both in scale and nature. Martin says that in the past year alone she was offered 25 fakes purportedly from the hand of Mexican social realist muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. After spending a substantial sum on a fake Siqueiros painting eight years ago, Aaron waged a battle against both a Siqueiros family member, whom he says assured him that the painting was genuine, and the Mexican government officials he alleges are complicit in the racket. (The Siqueiros family and Mexican government officials denied any wrongdoing.)

FERNANDO BOTERO’S Jugadoras de Cartas II garnered $1.7 million.

If collectors haven’t bought a fake or two, they aren’t collectors of Latin American art, Aaron adds. Despite what he refers to as his "scars," Aaron takes obvious pleasure in this endeavor. He and his wife, Erika, once traveled to Los Angeles to secure La Mexicana by Manuel Gonzalez Serrano, while Erika was experiencing contractions leading to the birth of their first child. A photo in a Mexican magazine from 1934 sparked another quest. Aaron was determined to acquire the painting Life of a Harlequin by Federico Cantu, which he had never seen anywhere else. A six-month search led him to a parking garage in San Diego where the painting had been stored for nearly 60 years. "Part of the greatest emotion is the search," he says.

Because these works also represent investments, Aaron and other veteran collectors recommend taking a systematic approach, researching an artist as much as possible before making a purchase. He has amassed 3,000 books and created a ranking system based on which artists were important exhibitors in various museums and the highest prices their works have commanded.

VALUE JUDGMENT Latin American art prices are on the rise as a broadening pool of collectors fuels demand for the wide range of genres available. According to collectors and dealers, limited supply and an especially hazardous danger of fakes present challenges in the field. But the works remain bargains compared to those of many other modern and contemporary masters. And collectors who fall for Latin American art tend to fall hard, so financial returns are usually far from their minds.

Stanley and Pearl Goodman, collectors who live in Florida, also spend ample time researching pieces before they make purchases. They talk with dealers, attend art exhibits in Miami, collect auction catalogs and travel to New York twice a year for major sales. They also spend time in Argentina and Brazil, relying on guides and Pearl’s college-level command of Spanish.

The Goodmans began collecting 15 years ago because they enjoyed Mexican muralists, and then realized there was more to Latin American art. They have assembled more than 50 works that they refer to as "Latin American Art 101" in their home. Among their favorite pieces is a 1933 oil by Mexican muralist Jose Clemente Orozco. To avoid getting swept up in the auction frenzy, the Goodmans usually agree on their limit beforehand. For this particular work, however, they went up one extra bid to secure it for about $60,000.

They enjoy the humor of the painting, entitled Successful People, as well as its history. From 1932 to 1934, Orozco was an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College, and his work reflects the impressions he formed of American art-goers. In the piece, two priggish WASPs in evening dress peer out from the canvas, noses raised in distaste as though they regard a work of art that is not to their liking. "It’s not the most expensive painting in the collection, but it’s so funny," Pearl says. "Everybody gets a chuckle out of it when they think this was a Latin American artist looking on us."

Personal Effects
Like the Goodmans, Rico Garcia became captivated by Mexican art when he first saw murals by Diego Rivera and Orozco. Garcia is the CEO of Indigenous Wealth Consulting and a member of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians located outside of Los Angeles. He is also Mexican American, and enjoys focusing on art that merges the modern and native perspectives. Garcia values his collection at about $1 million, and says he devotes about 35 percent of his investment funds to Latin American art. His pieces include works by Gunther Gerzso, Carlos Merida and Fernando de Szyszlo.

For Garcia, finding resources for information on the artists presents a serious challenge, because he is not fluent in Spanish. He relies on dealers, including Martin and Latin American Masters, as well as the website Artnet.com, for information. Garcia counts an abstract work by de Szyszlo, Trashumantes Diptico, as a favorite piece. Measuring roughly 5 feet by 7 feet, the painting dominates the wall above his desk. "I often find myself looking at it and staring, and maybe not doing work," Garcia says. "Maybe that’s why you have art."

Cisneros and her husband structured their holdings as a study collection, which they make available for exhibitions and academia. They created the Fundación Cisneros to promote Latin American art and culture. Their art and education-related philanthropy began in the 1980s with a school for Venezuelan musicians, and evolved in the 1990s into the foundation. Today 18 Caracas-based staff members, including conservators, art historians and curators, tend to her holdings: an Amazonian collection with more than 2,000 pieces; a colonial collection with about 100 works; the geometric abstraction group with some 500 pieces; and a landscape collection Cisneros cannot quantify. Two or three hundred of her works travel at any given time to destinations as far flung as Japan and Sweden.

PATRICIA PHELPS de Cisneros, by Willys de Castro’s Objeto Ativo, is one of the world’s most renown collectors of Latin American art. (Photograph by Jason Dewey.)

Although Cisneros has a broad mission, she also maintains a highly personal relationship with the works she collects, insisting that she loves every piece. Cisneros says that one of the advantages of being a private collector is her option to pass on a work she doesn’t like, even though her curators recommend it to complete a series.

Among her current favorites is a small conceptual minimalist work, Objeto Ativo, by Brazilian Neo-Concrete artist Willys de Castro. Cisneros showcased the piece last winter in an exhibition in Aspen. Would she keep Objeto Ativo at home in New York for a time after its return? Cisneros answers, "Absolutely. I can’t wait to wake up to it."

Catherine Curan is a senior correspondent for Worth.