Art Rite, the Milanese auction house on the occasion of the Jewels and Watches auction on April 7, will donate part of the buyer's premium to the hospitals of Lodi and Codogno, which were the first to face the challenge of Covid 19.
In addition, the next Art-Rite auction of Modern and Contemporary Art is scheduled for April 8, pending new ministerial provisions for effective execution.
The selection consists exclusively of works from private collections, whose importance and rarity therefore also add up to their freshness on the market, a quality to which collectors pay great attention and which therefore makes these works particularly interesting.
The catalog opens with a nucleus of optical-kinetic art, well represented by one of the first editions of reliefs on paper by Enrico Castellani (estimate 2.800 - 3.200 €), by the famous folder 7 Twins by Max Bill (estimate 1.500 - 2.500 €) and a tempera chromatic grid by Hugo De Marco (estimate 1.500 – 2.500 €). This is followed by two historic paintings by Luc Peire (estimate 5.500 – 7.500 € and 6.000 – 8.000 €), exhibited in 1970 at the Galleria Lorenzelli, one of the most important centers for the dissemination of abstract-concrete art in the post-war period, and three works by Bruno Munari, two of which belong to the artist's lesser-known production. Three-dimensional square (estimate 3.000 – 5.000 €), belongs to the “Folding sculptures”, where the two-dimensional geometric figure is decomposed and transformed into a dynamic volume that lends itself to multiple points of observation, while Arrangement in a garden on a stone (estimate 2.500 – 3.500 €) is part of the Tensostrutture series, a field of research tackled by the artist as early as the XNUMXs and taken up again in the XNUMXs with a more poetic tone that explores the geometry-nature relationship.
The section dedicated to sculpture follows, with three works by Pablo Atchugarry from the late seventies/early eighties, in which the evident predilection for human anatomy already anticipates subsequent sculptural research.
Then there is a bronze by Andrea Cascella (estimate 3.500 - 4.500 €) and two sculptures by Pietro Consagra (both estimated 10.000 - 15.000 €), evidence of that search for a sculpture that tended as much as possible to two-dimensionality and spatial continuity .
The two canvases by Giuseppe Ajmone from 1960 (both estimated at €8.000 – €12.000), depicting two stylized peripheral views, contrast with the urban view by William Congdon (estimate €6.500 – €7.500), in which the profile of the town square is defined by furrows made in the dense pictorial material.
In lot 41, on the other hand, we find an iconic painting by Tino Stefanoni dated 1969-1972 (estimate 4.000 - 6.000 €), capable of making "a sentimental, ironic and metaphysical rationalism" emerge from the repetition of an everyday object.
Two canvases by Mimmo Germanà follow (estimate 2.500 - 3.500 € and 6.500 - 7.500 €) which, in the context of the return to figuration, give light to a painting made up of fantastic visions, made even more vivid thanks to the expressionist lines and bright colors .
A canvas by Mirella Bentivoglio from 1969 (estimate 5.500 – 7.500 €) is part of the section dedicated to verbal-visual research, which also includes two works of visual poetry signed by Sarenco and Ugo Carrega.
The central part of the auction is embellished with an important photographic collection from a prestigious Genoese collection, which had the merit of being able to select the major interpreters of Italian and international photography from the post-war period to the present day.
In fact, in addition to the undisputed masters of Italian photography such as Luigi Ghirri, Franco Vaccari, Franco Fontana and Mimmo Jodice, there is room for the body art of Viennese Actionism, French lettrism, the intense images of Gina Pane and Francesca Woodman, without forgetting the performance art by Vito Acconci and Rebecca Horn.
The works that make up the evening session of the catalog are excellent testimonies of many important moments in the history of art of the last century, which we are sure will meet the wishes and tastes of collectors.
Surely one of the highlights of the auction is lot no. 80 (estimate 50.000 – 100.000 €), a pastel by Giacomo Balla made as a design for a fabric, in which the plot of the design expands to invade the frame of the work. This work represents a happy outcome of the conception of "Total Art" promoted by the artist, an idea which consisted in wanting to modify all areas of everyday life through art, giving life to a colorful and renewed universe.
We then arrive at lot no. 82 (estimate 10.000 - 20.000 €), Sunset on Monte Rosa, painted by Renato Guttuso in 1968 characterized by energetic and dynamic brushstrokes, which is counterbalanced, in the next lot, by the peaceful view of Salvo (estimate 22.000 - 28.000 €), in which the sunset light illuminates and colors all the elements of the landscape.
At lot no. 84 stands out one of the famous veils by Franco Angeli (estimate 25.000 – 35.000 €), who in 1967 chose the image of the eagle engraved on the half dollar coins as the favorite symbol of his painting, a symbol which, however, was concealed with a veil of nylon to weaken its meaning.
Power in Sicily follows, a work on paper by Mario Schifano from 1962 (estimate 15.000 – 25.000 €) which stands out for its incredible modernity testified by the ability to know how to synthesize the typical pictorial style of the artist with a strong denunciation of a socio- politic.
We would also like to draw attention to a rare excitable by Servulo Esmeraldo, (estimate 10.000 – 15.000 €) a kinetic object where the elements enclosed within it come to life whenever its surface is rubbed.
The catalog continues with a sun by Hsiao Chin (estimate 20.000 – 30.000 €), which well represents his Taoist vision of the world in which opposing dualisms reconcile within his pictorial universe.
The last section of the sale is dedicated to conceptual art with the numerical score by Anne Darboven (estimate 3.000 – 5.000 €) which makes the passage of time visible, the two folders by Urs Lüthi (estimate 14.000 – 18.000 € and 5.000 – 8.000 €) in which the making of art is confused with life itself and Ontani's tableux vivant (estimate 20.000 – 40.000 €) in which the artist gives life to a truly living iconography.
