Now

Arte Moderna e Contemporanea

BIDDING FORM

LUCIO FONTANA AND OSVALDO BORSANI
FROM A MILANESE RESIDENCE

The spring sale of Modern and Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Milan will take place during the MIART Fair and the Salone del Mobile, undoubtedly the best time of the year for art in Milan.

Among the highlights of the sale, we present ten iconic lots from a private Italian collection. Bendato by Salvatore Scarpitta, formerly exhibited at Leo Castelli’s gallery, New York, sits alongside Fiori, a delicate 1952 still life by Giorgio Morandi, as well as Umberto Boccioni’s 1911 Testa di bambina, formerly in the renowned Ruberl collection in Frankfurt. From the same collection, Arte Povera is represented by a mirrored work by Michelangelo Pistoletto dated 1982.

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Sotheby’s in Italy, we are pleased to offer a wide selection of artworks by Lucio Fontana: the cover is dedicated to an harmonious canvas with four slashes dated 1967. Next, we find a bright orange work dated 1964 with a single central cut; the painting is inscribed with a reference to the French critic Michel Tapié.The selection is completed with a gold oil on canvas, Concetto Spaziale, executed in 1963-64 and a thickly painted ‘olio’ executed in 1961.

In addition, some remarkable ceramic sculptures illustrate Fontana’s ability to work the material: we find a 1956 terracotta from a private Italian collection in Como and a 1964-65 rare white oval from the Liverani Collection in Rome.

In conjunction with Milan Design Week, we are delighted to include wonderful environmental art works, fruit of the collaboration between Lucio Fontana and the designer, Osvaldo Borsani, for a distinguished Milanese residence in the early 50s.

The selection also includes two magnificent canvases by Piero Dorazio, from a European private collection, a Bianco executed in 1960 by Alberto Burri and donated by the artist to the curator Paul Wember, and two embroidered tapestries by Alighiero Boetti from 1988.

Taking pride of place is a painting by Renato Guttuso, titled La Discussione , formerly shown at New York’s Aca Heller Gallery, which evokes a similar work in London’s Tate Modern.

Among the international artists we find the 1956 Gris Brun Noir Rouge by Serge Poliakoff, a composition titled Fines vibrations en blue et noir by Jesús-Rafael Soto, dated 1974, and works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Carlos Cruz-Diez.