Lucio Fontana

Martha Jackson Gallery, New Yok
Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Rome
Private Collection, Turin (acquired from the above in the 1970s)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Brussels 1974, Vol. II, pp. 124-5, no. 62 ME 30, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Milan 1986, Vol. II, p. 418, no. 62 ME 30, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, Vol. II, p. 601, no. 62 ME 30, illustrated (incorrectly illustrated as no. 62 ME 28)

The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the illustration fails to convey fully the reflective quality of the surface. This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals very minor surface irregularities scattered at intervals, which are evident in the catalogue illustration and most likely inherent to the artist's working process. Close inspection reveals some minute areas of oxidation to the inside recesses of the taglio and very light handling marks towards the bottom left corner.
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"New York is more Beautiful than Venice!! The skyscrapers of glass look like great cascades of water that fall from the sky!! At night it is a huge necklace of rubies, sapphire, and emeralds!" The artist in a postcard to the Bardini family mailed in New York on 24 November 1961


Executed in 1962 at the height of his extraordinarily creative career, Concetto Spaziale, New York 21 is absolutely paradigmatic of one of Fontana's most iconic series and the sum of decades of courageous experimentation and invention. Concetto Spaziale, New York 21 is a strikingly evocative depiction of the sights, sounds and movements of a city, immortalised by the indelible marks of Fontana's genius. The Metalli produced between 1961 and 1968 were initially inspired by Fontana's trip to New York from Italy in November 1961. Fontana had been invited to exhibit paintings from his Olii cycle dedicated to Venice at the gallery of Martha Jackson, whom he had previously met through the Director of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, Philip Johnson. Of course, it is important to remember that at that time, the Chrysler, Empire State and GE Buildings were barely thirty years old, and Mies Van Der Rohe's extraordinary Seagram Building had been completed in only 1958. The magnificent architecture of New York and the extraordinary light-reflecting sky-scrapers had an overwhelming and inspirational impact on Fontana. After visiting the Seagram Building the artist wrote: "I went to the top floor of the most famous of the skyscrapers...the one made of bronze and gilded glass... It seemed to contain the sun..." (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Collection,Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006, p. 42). Indeed, Luca Massimo Barbero has observed how the island of Manhattan "may paradoxically be compared to Venice's magnificence of the past, but New York was vital, teeming with energy, life, the future" (Ibid.).

Concetto Spaziale, New York 21 belongs to the first group ofMetalli, titled New York, which together with the Venezia series is the only group of works by the artist which have a topographical subtitle, although Fontana's intentions were certainly never descriptive or illustrative. In 1962 Fontana returned from New York determined to find a pictorial translation for the inspirational emotions he felt generated by the city, which would subsequently become theNew York series. Beyond brilliant architectural feats, sky-scrapers also emblematised a future way of life, implementing technological advances to create a more efficient mode of living and working.

Back in his studio in Milan, Fontana realized that he would have to enlist unprecedented media that evoked the shiny structures of New York's buildings. His choice of metallic sheets came quite spontaneously as the only material able to render the magnificent aura of skyscrapers. After experimentation with aluminium and brass, copper became the principal metal employed in the New York series on account of its comparable malleability, lustrous colour and capacity to reflect light and forms into magical fragmentation. Fontana particularly appreciated its strength and resilience despite the creation of multiple facets and fissures necessary to achieve reflections and shadows throughout the sheet. Indeed, for the Metalli series, Fontana conceived light as a fundamental part of the artwork, creating surfaces which recall the ephemeral patterns of reflections left by the sun on the glass windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. Indeed, he observed how "no other material so successfully captures the sense of this Metropolis made all of glass, of windowpanes, orgies of light and the dazzle of metal" (Ibid., 45).