Agostino Bonalumi

Private Collection, Verona

Melzi Fine Art, Milano

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2014

 Fabrizio Bonalumi, Marco Meneguzzo, Agostino Bonalumi. Catalogo Ragionato, Milano 2015, vol. I p. 288, vol. II no.1812, p.736

• An essential illustration of the artist's pioneering use of the shaped canvas (tela estroflessa).
• A distinctive, late-period example, created four years prior to the artist's passing.
• The immersive monochromatic blue central to Bonalumi's exploration of light.

The present work, BLU, executed in 2009, is a compelling and meditative example of Agostino Bonalumi's sustained investigation into the plasticity of the canvas. The canvas is meticulously organized to create a series of gentle, rhythmic protrusions. The immersive monochromatic blue, a color often favored by the artist for its depth, serves to dematerialize the painting surface while simultaneously highlighting the tension between the physical estroflessione and the shadow it casts.

This work stands as a quintessential example of Bonalumi’s known style and technique, perfectly embodying the principles he established alongside Enrico Castellani in the early 1960s. By abandoning the traditional flat canvas for the tela estroflessa (shaped canvas), Bonalumi effectively moved painting past mere illusionism, allowing the work to generate its own internal geometry and dynamic interplay with ambient light. The calculated simplicity of the composition, realized solely through structure and controlled shadow, demonstrates the rigorous conceptual foundation that defines his influential position within the European post-war avant-garde.

This work stands for the refined, almost restrained character of its formal language in his late period. While Bonalumi often employed larger, more aggressive forms beneath the canvas in earlier decades, the estroflessioni in BLU are highly attenuated, achieving a delicate, almost lyrical surface modulation. This subtlety shifts the focus away from the material drama of the relief and emphasizes the optical effect of the shadow lines themselves, offering a sophisticated exploration of visual perception achieved through minimal physical intervention. This deliberate restraint demonstrates a conceptual purity and a mastery of his medium sustained until the very end of his career.