Lot 35
  • 35

Lucio Fontana

Estimate
500,000 - 700,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Lucio Fontana
  • La Silla Barroca
  • signed and dated 1946 on the base
  • plaster
  • 120 by 65 by 80 cm. 47 1/4 by 25 7/8 by 31 1/2 in.

Provenance

Pablo Edelstein Collection, Buenos Aires (a gift from the artist)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

Buenos Aires, XXXVI Salón Nacional de Bellas Artes, no. 32, 1946

Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Lucio Fontana, April – June 1998, p. 127, no. 2/S/6, illustrated

Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural Borges, Museo Juan B. Castagnino, Lucio Fontana: Profeta del Espacio, March 1999, p. 97, no. 45 ESC 4, illustrated

Literature

Histonium, A. VIII, No. 94, Buenos Aires, March 1947, p. 168, illustrated

Continente 6, September 1947, p. 90, illustrated

Julio Rinaldini, 'Lucio Fontana o la vision inflamada y dinamica del objeto', Cabalgata, A. III, No. 16, Buenos Aires, February 1948, illustrated 

Continente, No. 52, July 1951, fig. 1, illustrated

Michel Tapié, Devenir de Fontana, Turin 1961, n.p., illustrated

Michel Tapié, Fontana, New York 1962, p. 43, illustrated 

Enrico Crispoli, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 21, no. 45 SC 4, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Fontana, Catalogo generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 84, no. 45 SC 4, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Paris, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Barcelona, Fondation Caixa de Pensions; Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lucio Fontana, October 1987 - September 1988, p. 367, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Fontana, Milan 1999, p. 26, no. 72, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Centenario di Lucio Fontana, Milan 1999, p. 34, illustrated

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana. Ombras maestras de la Fundaciòn Lucio Fontana de Milàn, Buenos Aires 1999-2000, p. 21, illustrated 

Exh. Cat., Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Palazzo Forti, Lucio Fontana: Metafore Barocche, October 2002 – March 2003, p. 16, illustrated

Enrico Crispoli, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 205, no. 46 SC 16, illustrated

Condition

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is darker in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is a layer of surface dirt, which looks to be in keeping with the ageing of the material. Close inspection reveals a few small chips, faint rub marks and abrasions in isolated places, notably one diagonal rub mark to the back of the figures neck. There are a few small spots of media accretion in isolated places and a chip to the underside of the women's right wrist which has been consolidated.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

"I am a sculptor and not a ceramist."

Lucio Fontana, ‘La mia ceramica’, in: Tempo, 21 September 1939, n.p.

 

La silla barroca (The baroque chair) is a distinguished example of Fontana’s monumental sculpture, a genre which had a profound impact on his entire œuvre. Whilst Fontana today remains well known for his iconic piercing of the canvas through his buchi (holes) and tagli (cuts), his artistic genesis is rooted firmly in the medium of sculpture and it is undeniable that this background proved paramount in articulating his conceptual understanding of space. Executed in 1946, the same year as the publication of the first Manifesto Blanco, the present work marks the genesis of Fontana’s unremitting exploration of Spatialism. Perfectly demonstrating the complex understanding of three-dimensional form, it encapsulates Fontana’s unique ability to meld the abstract and figurative to create a compelling sculpture that holds an idiosyncratically charismatic presence. Notably, La silla barroca was previously in the collection of the renowned Argentine artist Pablo Edelstein, a colleague and close friend of Fontana’s. As testament to their close friendship, Fontana wrote a letter to Edelstein from Milan in 1967, in which he suggested to make a bronze version of this important work.  

Though trained as a neo-Classical sculptor in Milan under Adolf Wildt, soon after leaving the Brera Academy Fontana rejected its academic prescriptions and formalist agenda. As he recalled in an interview some years later: “I took a great lump of plaster, gave it the rough shape of a seated man and then threw tar over it. Just like that, as a violent reaction. Naturally, Wildt took a dim view of it” (Lucio Fontana cited in: La Nación, Buenos Aires, 6 June 1943, in: Jole De Sanna, Lucio Fontana: Materia Spazio Concetto, Milan, 1993, p.10). Fontana moved further away from his traditional education at the Brera Academy when he  relocated to the small city of Albisolas in 1935. It was here, in the workshop of the Futurist ceramicist Tullio Mazzotti, that he began his career as a ceramicist. His artistic philosophy of Spatialism became heavily influenced by the Futurist’s radical desire to encompass movement and dynamism within the static image. Compared to his earlier more abstract works, his production in Albisola demonstrates an increased dramatic tension, fuelled by a desire to investigate gestural figuration in sculpture.

His return to Argentina in 1939 marked a period of deep artistic fervour and renewal. In 1946 the first Manifesto Blanco was published in Buenos Aires. The text primarily heralded a synthesis of space, time, colour, sound and movement – echoing both the spatiality of Baroque art and the dynamism of Futurism, which sought to permeate all aspects of life. Fontana glorified Baroque artists as activators of space by their suggestion of movement, above all inspired by the theatricality and pathos of sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  In the angel for St Peter's Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica for example, Bernini creates a crescendo of texture and swirling forms, lending the work an aura of weightlessness. Focussing on the idea that “movement, the capacity to evolve and to develop, is a basic property of matter”, the tenants of the Manifesto find true expression in the graceful female figure of the present work (Lucio Fontana, ‘The White Manifesto’, in: Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Eds., Art in Theory 1900 – 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford 2003, p. 655). Portraying a seated statue-like figure, La silla barocca, evokes a grandeur and “essentiality”, as described by Enrico Crispolti, which “is a perfect example” of the “typically ‘Baroque’ examples of (Fontana's) imagination” (Enrico Crispolti in: Exh. Cat., London, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Lucio Fontana: Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings, 2005, p. 13). Furthermore, in its depiction of a grand seated figure La silla barroca bears reference to depictions of a classical muse. The pure white of its material aligns the work with the Parthenon Marble of the revered Greek goddess of Hestia. However, instead of carving marble according to neo-Classical tradition, Fontana sculpted forms with his hands, exploiting the advantage of the malleable plaster to create areas of fragility and lightness.

Fontana himself poignantly described his ceramics as "a motionless earthquake" (terremotata ma ferma) (Lucio Fontana cited in: Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 2000, n.p.). Pushing forth its corporeality as an expressive form caught in continual perceptive fluctuation between strange abstraction and symbolic familiarity, La silla barroca is imbued with an extraordinary energy and drama. Moulded with a characteristic sense of organic delicacy, the present work stands at the apogee of his ceramic achievements.