Artists' portfolio: Ettore Spalletti, the magic of light and colour

His language is suspended between painting and sculpture and he investigates the relationship between light and space with poetic mania, skilfully combining modern abstraction and Renaissance geometries. His art is made of shapes and colors where blue predominates, his favorite color. He prefers it because “it's the only one that doesn't exist in nature but envelops us. From the sky to the sea. For this reason – he explains – it takes on the symbolic value of infinity”. Of pink, another color widely used by the Maestro, he says instead that he uses it because "it is the color of the complexion, therefore it always has the possibility of transforming itself according to our emotionality". In the "half sleep of the sea - he continues - we find the silver gray"; while gray “is welcoming: a color that moves towards white but also towards black, which offers the highest quality of all colours”. In these reflections we find the essence of the research of Ettore Spalletti, born in Cappelle sul Tavo (Pe) in 1940. Since the mid-seventies (source Wikipedia) he has dedicated himself to research aimed at enhancing the emotional prominence of the chromatic tone , investigated both in painting and in sculpture, elaborating wooden and marble structures of essential shapes, from whose apparent monochrome a pictorial dexterity of superimposed and abraded layers transpires, a color imbued with matter and light, in harmonious interrelation with the surrounding space. The artistic practice is identified in Spalletti with an entirely manual process of elaboration of the surface (the wooden support of the painting, but also the marble of the sculpture), treated with multiple layers of pigments. The pictorial surface relates to the exhibition environment in a physical sense, to the point of renouncing its integrity through the tapering of the edges or the overhang of the support plane, going beyond the boundary between painting and sculpture. The sculptural work is presented as a form strongly synthesized in a geometric sense and often alludes to recognizable images (column, vase, cup, which are valid as archetypes of the language of sculpture).

Exhibition activity

He exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1982, 1993, 1995 and 1997, the year in which he represented Italy. He was invited to Documenta Kassel in 1982 and 1992. Numerous personal exhibitions dedicated to the artist by prestigious international institutions, among others, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, the Musée de Strasbourg, the SMAK in Ghent and the MUHKA in Antwerp, the South London Gallery in London, the Musée d'Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, the Kunstverein in Munich, the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the Henry Moore Foundation in Leeds, Villa Medici in Rome and the Museum Kurhaus in Kleve, the Portikus in Frankfurt, the MUHKA in Antwerp and Palazzo Cini in Venice. In 2014 the most complete retrospective of the artist's work, entitled A day so white, so white, was set up in a museum circuit formed by the MAXXI in Rome, the GAM in Turin and the Museo Madre in Naples.

Transfer market

In recent years, Ettore Spalletti's prices have grown steadily also following numerous exhibitions in prestigious Italian and international museums. In 2017, three Italian museums: the Madre in Naples, the MAXXI in Rome and the GAM in Turin dedicated a vast and exhaustive retrospective to him. But its golden moment derives above all, as well as naturally from the originality and refined poetics of its research, from the excellent work done by the reference galleries The latest arrival, in chronological order, Marian Goodman Gallery with offices in New York, London and Paris, he dedicated a personal exhibition to him in his London spaces and opened up the vast horizons of international collecting by increasing his prices significantly. The presence of his works in important Italian and foreign public and private collections is not secondary. It should be remembered - just to give an example - that Spalletti is present with numerous works in the collection of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, one of the greatest Italian collectors who died in 2010. The secondary market is also dynamic with over 130 auctions - to date - in the various types and an unsold rate that has progressively decreased to 25% in 2017 when – according to Artprice – it achieved a turnover of 530 thousand euros. Currently its average clearing price in international auctions is between 40 and 50 thousand euros.

Gallery:

Vistamare in Milan and Pescara directed by Benedetta Spalletti, granddaughter of the artist who has represented him since 2001. Other galleries are Lia Rumma with offices in Naples and Milan, Studio La Città di Verona, Marian Goodman Gallery with offices in New York, London and Paris, Galerie Lelong in Paris and Helga de Alvear in Madrid.


Pricing

To purchase a work by Spalletti in the gallery, an investment ranging from 30.000 to 400.000 euros is needed. (for one of his classic works – color impasto applied on a panel – measuring 100 × 100 cm, the asking price is 70-80 thousand euros). At the Basel fair in 2016 Lia Rumma exhibited the installation "Dormiveglia" (2010) by Ettore Spalletti, made up of a dozen works of different sizes with prices ranging from 50 to 500 thousand euros. According to its gallery owners, however, there is still a good margin for growth, especially after its arrival on the international market. And in fact, in addition to being purchased by Italian collectors, for some years – they underline – we have also received requests from the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and the United States”.


Top Price at auction
Cushion, mixed technique of 150 x 150×12 cm. created in 1982, it fetched 137.200 euros (including royalties) at Christie's in London – double the estimate – in October 2016, setting a new record for the artist