20TH CENTURY ITALIAN ART AT SOTHEBY’S
Concetto Spaziale by Lucio Fontana, glazed iron, estimated at
£400,000-600,000
IMPORTANT works by modern masters like Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Morandi
and Marino Marini highlight Sotheby’s sale dedicated to 20th Century Italian
Art on Monday, October 21, 2002 at 7pm. In addition, the sale will also
include seminal works by post-war artists as well as an impressive selection
of works by Arte Povera artists.
Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni were instrumental in the
development of a new artistic language during the years immediately
following the Second World War. Moving away from the past pictorial
concerns, they began to develop a conceptual vocabulary that focused on the
autonomy of the artwork as a subject in itself.
When Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) was invited to create his own room at the
Venice Biennale in 1958, he decided to centre his exhibition on a group of
eight Sculture Spaziale which he had been working on over the previous
couple of years. Vaguely plant-like in form, Fontana created a ‘forest’ of
sculpture in which each was characterised by a long thin stem supplanted by
a variety of flattened organic shapes. As the tallest of the group, the
prominence of Concetto Spaziale in many of the documentary photographs
of the exhibition marks it out as one of his major achievements of this time.
Executed in 1957, it is estimated at £400,000-600,000.
During his short life, Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) created a substantial oeuvre
examining the role of artwork and the artist. His work developed the notion of
the myth of the artist, while also extolling the virtues of the artwork as a selfgoverning, self-made object with its major physical features attributed to the
materials from which it was constructed. His series of Achromes are perhaps
the most renowned works from this group, and two exceptional works from
this important period of investigation between 1958 and 1960 will be
included in this sale and estimated at £350,000-450,000 and £120,000150,000 respectively.
Alberto Burri’s (1915-1995) series of
Combustione experimented with the
innate physical and chemical properties of
different materials. In the case of the
monumental Combustione Plastica, he
has stretched a large piece of plastic and
recorded the visual effects when it was set
alight. Signed and dated 1958, it is
estimated at £250,000-350,000.
Dynamic & Still Lives
Artistically, Italy was propelled into the 20th century by a group of artists
whose work led to the birth of the Futurist movement. Giacomo Balla’s (18711958) Dinamismo d’Automobile captures the movement’s fascination with
the dynamic pace of modern life brought about by the radical advent of
machines, locomotion and electricity. The picture, which was executed in
1913, is estimated at £220,000-280,000.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Giorgio
Morandi (1890-1964) began reconciling
traditional ways of painting with his own
abstract aesthetic, reuniting form, space,
light and colour. Natura Morta belongs to a
series of works in which the artist used
different combinations of objects and yellow
cloth. Produced in 1952, the painting comes
to the market from a private American
collection (est: £250,000-350,000).
In Cavallo e Giocoliere (Acrobata con Cavallo Rosso), master sculptor
Marino Marini (1901-1980) explores his favoured themes in paint. Colour
was key to painting for Marini, and in repeating the subject of horse and rider
in a series of works, he explored the endless possibilities of colour and
compositional variations. The apparent informality of his images and the
dramatic way in which lines are scratched into the paint give the surface of
his paintings a richness of texture typical of his work of the period. Produced
in 1958, the painting is estimated at £220,000-260,000.
Arte Povera
The Arte Povera movement originated in Italy at the end of the 1960s and
shook the artistic establishment to its roots. Using unorthodox and ‘worthless’
materials, such as leaves or newspapers, and
exploring different perceptual and sensual
perspectives, the artists provided art with a new
language that was neither figurative nor abstract.
By Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994), Tutto belongs to a
series of works designed by the artist and stitched by
Afghan women. Boetti had spent long periods of his
life in Afghanistan and was so inspired by his
experiences that he sought to reclaim craft as an
essential component of art. The embroidered tapestry
combines a myriad of different colourful figures and
objects and is expected to fetch £250,000-300,000.
By taking the basic shape of Italy and representing it through the use of
different materials Luciano Fabro (b. 1936) plays ironic whimsical games
with political undertones. In the case of one of his most renowned works,
L’Italia di Pelo, he uses reindeer fur and adjusts its form to reflect a simple
inversion of Italy’s geographical shape. This iconoclastic gesture, dated
1969, is estimated at £80,000-120,000.
By Giulio Paolini (b.1940) is Averroé, one of his most important flag-based
works. The structure of the work incorporates an archetypal steel flagpole,
onto which the artist has placed 15 different flags. It is estimated at £40,00060,000.
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SALE WILL BE ON VIEW AT
THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:
September 25-26, Sotheby’s Rome
October 1-3, Sotheby’s Milan
October 8-10, Sotheby’s New York
October 17-21, Sotheby’s London
IMAGES ARE AVAILABLE VIA EMAIL AND ISDN