Citigroup is selling its Mexican retail banking operation, Citibanamex, along with a collection of approximately 2,000 Mexican artworks dating from the 18th century to the present. The collection includes works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo, and is considered the most important private painting collection in Mexico. Citibanamex has stated the collection is an integral and indivisible part of the sale and will not be sold separately.
This matters because the collection represents a comprehensive survey of Mexican art history, with over 90 percent of the paintings by Mexican artists or foreign artists depicting Mexican themes. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard have publicly expressed concern, with Ebrard calling for the collection to be donated to the state as compensation for the federal government's bailout of Citibanamex in the 1990s. The outcome could set a precedent for how private corporate art collections are handled during bank sales, especially when they hold significant national cultural value.