Nearly 2,000 works from the Fobaproa collection were sold at public auctions.

▲ Everything was sold in seven auctions, at prices well below their real value. The sales were organized by the specialist gallery Louis C. Morton. Photo by Marco Peláez

Monica Mateos

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, May 2, 2025, p. 2

Of the 1,932 bank-owned works rescued 31 years ago by the Banking Fund for Savings Protection (FOBAPROA), the Mexican government managed to retain fewer than 10 pieces, which are currently housed in museums belonging to the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) and the Ministry of Public Education (SEP).

The rest of the works were sold at public auctions. In 1994, the entire collection was valued at 79 million pesos, but it sold for about 11 million, barely 14 percent of its value. Years later, specialists estimated that the so-called Fobaproa collection was worth several million dollars.

When the bank bailout scandal, promoted by Ernesto Zedillo, broke, it was an open secret that some bankers, before declaring bankruptcy, hid their most valuable works of art so they wouldn't be part of their assets for auction. It's even said that some even dared to smuggle pieces considered national heritage out of the country.

The truth is that no one has ever seen the works of art that were sold, which attracted a large number of curious visitors, more attracted by the morbid curiosity of learning about the artistic possessions of bankers like Carlos Cabal Peniche and Ángel Isidoro Rodríguez El Divino, than by appreciating the work of some of the country's most important painters, as gallery owner Louis Morton acknowledged.

At best, a significant portion of Mexico's artistic heritage, originally acquired to decorate the offices and properties of bankers who benefited from the Salinas regime, is now in private collections, even though many pieces were purchased with the money of savers.

Of the 171 that were catalogued as important works of art , the National Council for Culture and the Arts (today the federal Ministry of Culture) managed to keep two paintings by José María Velasco (View of Guelatao, 1889, and Landscape of Vallenfreda, 1861) that were owned by Banco Unión, as well as a relief medallion by Emmanuel Tolsá, made in 1799 in 24-karat gold-plated tin, destined for the National Museum of Art (Munal), while two pieces of sacred art from the 18th century went to the National Museum of the Viceroyalty.

Portrait of a Woman (1934), by David Alfaro Siqueiros, valued at $150,000 in 2002, was requested as a donation that year by the SEP. This work, which was part of the Banpaís heritage, was deposited in the Munal in 1999 because the Fobaproa lacked the necessary and adequate facilities, as well as the qualified personnel to store, conserve, and monitor works of significant artistic and commercial value. This would also allow the works to be exhibited to the general public .

The National Institute of Fine Arts decided not to negotiate for the important works to remain in the custody of its museums because, authorities argued at the time , "we are not interested in the graphic work, but in the original painting ." Thus, it remained in the warehouses of the Institute for the Protection of Bank Savings (IPAB), awaiting sale. The Man in Red, a lithograph from the series that Rufino Tamayo donated to the founding of La Jornada, number 100 of 100, and which had appeared in the offices of Banco Unión.

Inconsistent figures

According to an investigation conducted by La Jornada in 2007, IPAB data revealed inconsistencies both in the figures for the money obtained from the sale of this heritage and in the actual number of works of art that were the subject of the asset sales process of Banco Unión, Banca Cremi, Banco Obrero, Banco de Oriente, Banco Promotor del Norte, Banpaís, Grupo Financiero Capital, and Estrategia Bursátil Casa de Bolsa.

In its inventory, of those 1,932 works, the IPAB catalogued only 171 pieces as important works of art (oil paintings, watercolors, mixed media, lithographs, mixographs, sculptures, etc.) , by authors such as Rufino Tamayo, Juan Soriano, Carlos Mérida, Carmen Parra, Vicente Rojo, Luis Nishizawa, Manuel Felguérez, Mathias Goeritz and Francisco Toledo, among others.

Everything was sold in seven auctions, at prices well below their actual cost. The sales were organized by the specialized gallery Louis C. Morton. The first was held on August 10, 2000, where 236 units were sold for 4,950,000 pesos. The following four, held in 2001, collectively raised 4,161,709 pesos, while in 2002 two auctions were held, with sales totaling just 1,556,260 pesos, according to IPAB data, which do not entirely coincide with the annual reports submitted by the institution itself.

▲ When the Zedillo-sponsored bank bailout scandal broke, it was an open secret that some bankers hid their most valuable works so they wouldn't be sold. The truth is that no one has ever seen the auctioned pieces again because they were in private collections. Photo by Marco Peláez

The IPAB justified the low revenue collection in its 2001 activity report by pointing out that during that year the country's market for certain specialty items, including works of art, exhibited inertial behavior in line with the recessionary trends of the Mexican and foreign economies, which discouraged demand. This erratic scenario meant that in several cases the values ​​​​arrived at appraisals did not reflect actual market conditions at the time of the auctions .

Eighteen years ago, the organization explained to La Jornada that in its facilities located in the Zona Rosa of Mexico City (a building on Warsaw Street and another in Hamburgo) only 399 paintings that were part of the Bancrecer collection remained, which, together, are valued at 5 million 675 thousand 900 pesos.

Of that collection, only the painting "Río abajo" (Downstream), by the renowned Cuban painter Tomás Sánchez, is being donated to the National Institute of Fine Arts . The remaining works, considered minor , were hanging in the IPAB offices.

The Bancrecer collection consists of 199 ornamental reproductions, 54 lithographs, and a silkscreen, as well as 133 watercolors, nine oil paintings, a silicography, a pastel, and an original acrylic . This collection includes works by Luis Nishizawa, Martha Chapa, and Leonardo Nierman, among others.

A report prepared in 2000 by the Commission to Investigate the Operations of IPAB (Cifipab), composed of representatives from the 57th Congressional Legislature, reported the existence of an inventory of works of art owned by the intervened banks, comprising 1,932 pieces, with a registered value of approximately 79 million pesos.

Both the legislative investigation and oversight were cut short because Felipe Calderón, then coordinator of the PAN party, dismissed the investigative commission, proposing only a subcommittee that was never able to carry out its work.

Cifipab then criticized the fact that the bank's artwork inventories were constantly changing, making oversight difficult.

The 1,932 works of art initially discussed were classified into three categories: decorative items with artistic value, reproductions, and works of art. IPAB then reclassified this initial collection: 171 important works of art , 934 decorative works with artistic value , 607 decorative items (posters, reproductions, rugs), and 220 pieces of furniture (Herman Miller, Chipendale, Alfonso Marina, and Jorge Unna brands).

Another inventory conducted by the institute in 2006, which included sales up to that date, showed a total of 2,952 pieces. There was a considerable increase in the decorative items category: from 607 to 1,633.

Everything important was sold

In July 2007, La Jornada documented that the official inventory, excluding what had already been auctioned, indicated that all the important works and furniture had been sold. Of the valuable collection that the bank under investigation made available to the IPAB, only 146 decorative works of artistic value and 315 decorative items remained.

The commission of deputies investigating the operation of the IPAB, formed in 2000, noted the problem of the assets to be sold being distributed among 10 intervened institutions, which required negotiating with 10 intervenors, two specialized administrators (in the case of Serfín and Bancrecer), and 11 commercial banking institutions.

They indicated that the responsibility for inventory control fell on the banking institutions themselves and that the IPAB lacked the resources or infrastructure needed to directly safeguard and manage the assets.

Furthermore, the deputies considered that the assets were valued at prices that did not correspond to market values , which led them to conclude that the intervened banks did not have sufficient control or projections regarding the real value of their assets and, in many cases, the amount of the assets and their recovery were overestimated.