Two works compared at the next auction of Sotheby's that will be held next February 12 in London: Alberto Burri's Rosso Plastica from 1963 estimated at GBP 2-3 million and Lucio Fontana's Concetto Spaziale from 1965 estimated at GBP 1,0-1,5 million
Thanks to a masterful Libra of drama, compositional balance and raw material, Red Plastic it represents Burri's artistic invention at its peak, a real revolution in making art.
Executed in 1963, Red Plastic belongs to the most famous and important series of works created by the Umbrian artist: le Plastics.
After i Bags, the Woods, i Ferry, Alberto Burri reached the pinnacle of success with a corpus of works of great visual impact made up of superimposed layers of molten plastic, and the work at auction in London ranks among the most important examples of this series.
Red Plastic comes from an important private Italian collection, was exhibited in 1964, the year after its creation, in New York at the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, and in 1984 at the famous retrospective organized at Palazzo Citterio in the Grande Brera project.
The estimate of the large canvas is 2,000,000-3,000,000 GBP (2,400,000-3,600,000 EUR).
ALBERTO BURRI (1915 – 1995)
Red Plastic
Signed, dated '63, with dedication to Mario Doria and various inscriptions on the back
plastic, acrylic, vinavil and burns on canvas
80 by 100cm.
Pixy
£2,000,000-3,000,000 (€2,400,000-3,600,000)
Origin
Dora Collection, Brescia (purchased directly from the artist)
There purchased by the current owner in 1979
Exhibitions
New York, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Alberto Burri, 1964, no. 18
Milan, Brera 2 – Palazzo Citterio, Burri, 1984
Italian Literature
Palazzo Albizzini Foundation, Burri: Contributions to the Systematic Catalogue,
Citta di Castello 1990, p. 181, no. 759, illustrated in color
At the height of his artistic career, Lucio Fontana achieved the purest expression of his revolutionary approach to painting by cutting the surface of a white canvas with a razor blade.
Spatial Concept, Expectations, executed in 1965, with its five vertical cuts choreographically distributed on the pure white of the canvas, is one of the greatest examples of Fontana's poetics and his research in the field of space, gesture and light: through these three components, the Italian artist - argentinian explores the spatial dimension beyond the two-dimensional surface of the canvas.
Despite the apparent impulsiveness and violence of the cuts, every gesture of the artist is the result of a long, methodical and rational aesthetic research.
Fontana's action, far from being a destructive act, instead aims to transform the canvas by offering, thanks to the five carefully aligned cuts, a space in which light and shadow interpenetrate. Cutting the canvas is therefore the act that transforms the pictorial surface into sculpture: Spatial Concept, Expectations made in 1965, 92 by 73 cm, it attracts the observer and at the same time intimidates him with glimpses of an apparently infinite void.
The work is estimated at 1,500,000 -2,000,000 GBP (1,800,000-2,400,000 EUR).
LUCIO FONTANA (1899 – 1968)
Spatial Concept, Expectations 1965
Signed, titled and inscribed we went to see the street racing on the back
water-based paint on canvas
92 by 73cm.
Pixy
£1,500,000 -2,000,000 (€1,800,000-2,400,000).
