On May 14, Rago Wright auction house sold Maria Martins's bronze sculpture *Impossible* (1946) for $3.17 million with fees, far surpassing its presale estimate of $150,000–$200,000 and shattering the Brazilian Surrealist's previous auction record. Martins, who died in 1973, had only 22 works appear at auction since 2003, with most sales occurring in 2025. The sculpture, considered her most important work, exists in three iterations, with one at MoMA in New York and another at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. The sale attracted a dozen phone bidders, nine absentee bidders, and three online bidders.
This record-breaking sale matters because it signals a long-overdue market correction for an undersung female Surrealist whose contributions have been historically overshadowed by her association with Marcel Duchamp. Rago Wright director Lauren Bradley noted that while serious collectors recognized Martins's importance, she remained largely unknown to the broader art world. The result could elevate her wider market and bring renewed attention to her work, highlighting how institutional recognition and auction performance can finally align for marginalized artists from the Surrealist canon.