Mario Schifano

Studio Marconi, Milan
Leo Castelli, New York
Galleria l'Uomo e l'Arte, Milan
Libero Grande, Naples
Thence by descent to the present owners

Parma, Salone delle Scuderie in Pilotta, Mario Schifano, 1974, no. 8, illustrated

During a visit to America in 1962, Schifano saw numerous works by leading figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement that were to exert a profound influence upon his artistic development. In particular it was the bold, heroic gestures of Franz Kline that were to shape Schifano’s work of the early 1960’s, paintings that earned his reputation as one of the most important Italian artists of his generation. Kline’s dramatic bichrome work (see fig. 2) encouraged Schifano to explore the relationship between text and image: his expressive black brushmarks against a white background resembling enlarged, gestural handwriting. The dedication ‘a Franz Kline’ on the reverse of Iniziale Grande N. 1 executed shortly after he returned from America is an acknowledgement of this. Schifano here fills the entire picture surface with a vast letter ‘A’, removing it of meaning, context and expanding its form beyond the limits of the picture field. Schifano’s letter becomes an abstract arrangement of shapes devoid of conventional meaning, encouraging us to question our understanding of language and forms of communication. Reflecting the influence of Jasper Johns’ work also, Schifano uses the isolated letter as a vehicle for individual artistic expression. The drips of paint suggestive of street graffiti hang like icicles from the monumental black form, rupturing the geometric clarity of the bichrome composition and visually uniting the segmented composition.