亞伯特·布里

Private Collection, Italy (a gift from the artist in the 1970s)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals two minor spots of fluorescence in a receding area towards the bottom left corner which do not appear to be restoration.
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Alberto Burri's magnificent Bianco Cretto, 1975, is an exquisite example from the Cretti series that the artist first began in 1970.  Having exploited the expressive possibilities of everyday and often impoverished materials such as burlap (sacchi), wood (legni) and iron (ferri), Burri turns to the primal materials of earth and water in this work. Beautifully composed of a virginal white surface and sculptured furrows, Bianco Cretto reveals the artist’s unique approach to material, exhibiting his ability to transform these into a medium capable of expressing his powerful artistic vision. In combining zinc white, kaolin and vinyl glue, Bianco Cretto exposes an enigmatic surface of deep craquelure that echoes “the timeless crackling of the earth in a dry river bed when the slow evaporation of water has robbed the earth of its vicious consistency and left it bereft of moisture” (Jan Butterfield, ‘Alberto Burri: Umbrian Echoes and Alchemical Implications,’ Exhibition Catalogue, Palm Springs, Palm Springs Desert Museum, Alberto Burri, 26 January- 14 March 1982, n.p.).

Before the Second World War, Burri, a student of medicine, did not envisage any artistic career. After being captured in Tunisia and interned in a prisoner of war camp, Burri returned to Italy with an inner necessity of exploring the possibilities of painting and abandoned a potentially secure career as a doctor. Painting represented for Burri a moment of catharsis, a response to his desire to overcome memories of the war by escaping into a creative dimension. Painting suddenly became essential to Burri's life and "he created a new world of form" (Herbert Read cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Hanover Gallery, Alberto Burri, 1960, n. p.).

The Cretti series is thematically linked to Burri’s time in California and the American Southwest, and re-examines the uneven cracked surfaces of the Bianco series of the early 1950’s.  Starting in the late 1960’s the artist embarked on almost annual trips to Death Valley in Eastern California and other parts of the Southwest, that proved to be inspirational. The cracked surfaces of dry earth in his photographs of Death Valley “mirror the visual interests and formal choices in his works of the 1970s and 80s" (Lisa Melandri, ‘Finding Alberto Burri’s Place in America, Exhibition Catalogue, Santa Monica, Santa Monica: Museum of Art, Combustione: Alberto Burri and America, 11 September- 18 December 2010, p. 24).

Widely celebrated as a leading pioneer and one of the most influential Post-War Italian artists, Bianco Cretto epitomises Burri's revolutionary approach to material and his transformation of the concept of painting. So perfected was Burri’s process that despite the natural and evocative nature of the cretti, he was able to control of the entire surface, allowing cracking to appear only in designated areas. As such Bianco Cretto reaches a perfect equilibrium between the sensuality of texture, the balance of composition and the vitality of materials. As James Johnson Sweeny once commented, "Burri is a poet, a surgeon who knows and feels with intense visualization what lies in the fleshy surface of his compositions, and an artist who is able to suggest this to the sympathetic observer" (James Johnson Sweeney, Burri, Rome 1955, p. 6).