“Every dictator gets rid of the artist first,” said the Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison. “Art might do something. It’s dangerous.” Morrison’s insight applies to the life of Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, a Brazilian journalist, activist, and patron of the arts who was alive during the Castelo Blanco coup d’état and military regime. Her interests (provocative modern art), work (managing an antiestablishment newspaper, Correio da Manhã) and hobbies (vociferous protesting) made her an enemy of the state and eventually led to her arrest. Today, her legacy lives on at Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Modern Art, which she founded, and in her extensive private art collection. Sotheby’s is hosting an auction of the exquisite collection this week. It includes works by Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti estimated to sell in the millions. —Carolina de Armas