Press Release London
For Immediate Release
London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | matthew.weigman@sothebys.com Sarah Rustin | sarah.rustin@sothebys.com
Sotheby’s 10th Anniversary Sale of 20th Century Italian Art To Include Notable Works by De Chirico, Morandi a nd Fontana
20th Century Italian Art Sale, 20 October, 2008
SOTHEBY’S is proud to announce its tenth annual auction of 20th Century Italian Art on 20 October, 2008. Having held the inaugural sale in this specialist area in 1999, Sotheby’s has since held sales each successive year. In our last auction season of Modern and Contemporary art this June/July we reached a total of £30 million for works by Italian artists, confirming Sotheby’s position as the international market leader. This year’s auction will include a selection of notable works by Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Marino Marini, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Alighiero e Boetti and Michelangelo Pistoletto.
Giorgio de Chirico’s Interno metafisico con testa di filosofo painted in 1926 (est. £1,000,0001,500,000) is a very fine example from de Chirico’s second Parisian period. This striking painting displays images of classical sculpture and architecture, a recurrent motif in de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, often juxtaposing remnants of antiquity with contemporary settings and imbuing his compositions with a timeless quality. The painting articulates the eerie sense of displacement that de Chirico sought to create through his enigmatic groupings of disparate objects, a style that was extremely influential to Surrealist artists of the time and is important in the positioning of De Chirico at the forefront of the European avant-garde. Natura Natura Morta of 1956 (est. £500,000-700,000) by Giorgio Morandi exemplifies the artist’s search for beauty and harmony in commonplace objects, its composition blending a traditional genre of painting with a thoroughly modern aesthetic. Claudia Dwek, the specialist for this sale and co-chairman of Sotheby’s Italy, says “The work, exceptional in quality and coming from an important European collection, is one of the best Morandi paintings we have seen appear at auction in recent years”. Morandi’s miraculous ability to transform humble objects into something almost transcendental justifies his reputation as one of the greatest Italian artists of the twentieth century. The full scope of Morandi's work is currently the subject of a retrospective exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, confirming Morandi’s place in the in the 20th century canon. Marino Marini’s sculpture Cavaliere (1951, est. £500,000-700,000) and his monumental oil Cavaliere Rosso (1958, est. £400,000-500,000) are striking examples of his horse and rider theme, revealing the artist’s ability to absorb the Modernist ideas of his time and his avant-garde interpretation of a classical subject. It is this blend of heritage and innovation that distinguishes Marini’s work from that of many of his
contemporaries. Among 20th century sculptors, Marini was one of the most actively involved in the finishing of his pieces before they left the foundry. Cavaliere is a stunning example of Marini's involvement in handchiselling a sculpture and exhibits a striking variety of surface treatments that invest the work with an immediacy and versatile quality rarely achieved in this medium.
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SOTHEBY’S TO OFFER A COMPREHENSIVE SELECTION OF WORKS BY LUCIO FONTANA
Sotheby’s set a new price record for a work by Lucio Fontana with its sale of Concetto Spaziale, la fine di dio in February 2008 (achieved £10,324,500), establishing him at the level of international contemporary masters. The Guggenheim’s major exhibition of his work in both New York and Venice last year underlined the enduring influence of an artist who dedicated his career to investigating the concept of space. The works Sotheby’s will offer as part of the sale - from each of the variety of media in which he worked, including his sculptures, slashed canvas paintings and works on paper - are a testament to his art’s ever-increasing international appeal. Commenting on the rare breadth of his work to be offered, Claudia Dwek said, “Having placed him on a level with American Minimalist artists, Sotheby’s is pleased to present a sale that showcases the remarkable ability of this quintessential Arte Povera artist in the wide variety of media in which he worked.”
Fontana’s painting Concetto Spazi ale, Attese (1967, est. £500,000Spazi paziale, Attese 700,000) is an outstanding example of his Tagli, a series which embodied his desire to push the boundaries of representation, his work literally extending beyond the physical limits of the surface, turning the flat canvas into a powerful three-dimensional object.
Spaziale, Forma Concetto Spazi ale, Forma (1957, est. £800,000-1,200,000) belongs to a group of sculptures Fontana produced specially for the room designated to him at the Venice Biennale of 1958. In this work the artist transforms iron into an organic, breathing membrane, resulting in an object of ethereal presence and fragile beauty. Also to be included in the sale is a work from the collection of Enrico Crispolti, who has written the Catalogue Raisonné of Fontana’s work. Concetto Spaziale comprised of lacerations and Spaziale, aniline on linen-paper card, was acquired directly from the artist by Enrico Crispolti around 1960 and is estimated at £160,000-200,000. Also to be included in the sale is Nero F by Alberto Burri (1956, est. £700,000900,000), a stunning example of the artist’s aspiration to transform the most humble of materials by granting them the power to fully express his revolutionary artistic vision. Extraneous material elements such as newspaper cuttings, fragments of wood and small objects had already entered the pictorial space of painting in the works of the Futurists, Cubists and Dadaists across Europe, but in Burri’s work for the first time the texture of the canvas becomes the painting itself.
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Tutto by Alighiero e Boetti (est. £200,000-300,000) encapsulates the essence of this artist’s work and belongs, arguably, to his most important series. During the early 1970s he travelled to Afghanistan where he discovered the craft of tapestry, which would mark a turning point in his career. He began a series of embroideries made by Afghan women, each symbolic of the complexity of the world, its cultural diversity and its development. The title, meaning ‘everything’, illustrates Boetti’s desire to include a multitude of objects within his varied and organic work, while allowing each to find its own place within the composition.
Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mirror Painting series, to which Lui e Lei che P arlano Parlano belongs (est. £300,000-400,000), quickly brought him international acclaim and several solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in Europe and the United States, and the relevance and appeal of his work continues to grow. The series was made during the early 1960s using mirror-polished stainless steel onto which cut-out photographic images of figures were applied, allowing the artist to directly involve the viewer in the work, creating an interaction between the artist’s image and the reflection of the viewer and their world.
Piero Manzoni, Achrome (circa 1962), estimated at £120,000-180,000
20 art Sotheby’s top prices for 20th century Italian art Gino Severini, Danseuse Sotheby’s London, June 2008 Danseuse, Estimate: £7,000,000–10,000,000 Achieved: £15,049,250 Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, la fine di dio Sotheby’s London, February 2008 dio, Estimate: £650,000–850,000 Achieved: £10,324,500 Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attesa Sotheby’s London, February 2008 Attesa, Estimate: £3,500,000–5,500,000 Achieved: £6,740,500 Piero Manzoni, Achrome Sotheby’s New York, May 2008 Achrome, Estimate: $4,500,000–6,500,000 Achieved: $10,121,000
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Marino Marini, L’idea del cavaliere, Sotheby’s New York, May 2007 cavaliere Estimate: $6,000,000–8,000,000 Achieved: $7,040,000 Piero Manzoni, Achrome Sotheby’s London, October 2007 Achrome, Estimate: £1,200,000–1,800,000 Achieved: £2,260,500 Marino Marini, Cavaliere Sotheby’s London, October 2003 Cavaliere, Estimate: £1,200,000–1,800,000 Achieved: £1,797,600 Alighiero e Boetti, Mappa del mondo Sotheby’s London, October 2007 mondo, Estimate: £400,000–600,000 Achieved: £580,500 Alighiero e Boetti, Tutto Sotheby’s London, October 2006 Tutto, Estimate: £400,000–600,000 Achieved: £568,000
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium
Sotheby’s is a global company that engages in art auction, private sales and art-related financing activities. The Company operates in 40 countries, with principal salesrooms located in New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris. The Company also regularly conducts auctions in six other salesrooms around the world. Sotheby’s is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BID.
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