1965
See also : Cars 1965-67 Lichtenstein Zhang Daqian Zao Wou-Ki Sanyu Mountains in China Modern Italian art Alps
1963-1965 Liz on a Wider Screen
2015 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Andy Warhol was a clever businessman of his own art. In 1963, when he executed his series of Liz Taylor pictures, he made it as multiple single paintings of the same design instead of positioning many images on one canvas.
He maintained however the illusion of wall advertising by exhibiting side by side the similar elements of the group. Afterwards each artwork could be sold separately by the owner of the set.
On May 11, 2010, Sotheby's sold for $ 18.3M including premium the Silver Liz diptych. It had been discussed in this column at that time. It is now estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 19A.
This specimen has a specific history. It was included in the exhibition of ten Silver Liz 101 x 101 cm at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in September-October 1963. When he prepared another exhibition to be held in Philadelphia in 1965, Andy recuperated this specific copy and flanked it on its left with a blank canvas of same size and same silver shade.
In this new configuration which has never been disassembled, the Silver Liz diptych remained a tribute to Liz while also imitating the wide screens of the movie theaters.
He maintained however the illusion of wall advertising by exhibiting side by side the similar elements of the group. Afterwards each artwork could be sold separately by the owner of the set.
On May 11, 2010, Sotheby's sold for $ 18.3M including premium the Silver Liz diptych. It had been discussed in this column at that time. It is now estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 19A.
This specimen has a specific history. It was included in the exhibition of ten Silver Liz 101 x 101 cm at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in September-October 1963. When he prepared another exhibition to be held in Philadelphia in 1965, Andy recuperated this specific copy and flanked it on its left with a blank canvas of same size and same silver shade.
In this new configuration which has never been disassembled, the Silver Liz diptych remained a tribute to Liz while also imitating the wide screens of the movie theaters.
1965 Quantum Painting
2017 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Roy Lichtenstein questions the fundamental principles of painting by appropriating images from the comics, coloring large surfaces on his canvases with Ben-day dots and transforming a masterpiece into a reference for derision.
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
1965 Maoshan Majesty by Fu Baoshi
2017 SOLD for RMB 187M including premium by Poly
narrated in 2021
Fu Baoshi was not only the imaginative illustrator of old legends. Throughout his career, he also seeks the quintessence of the landscape, in all seasons, in all weather. He expresses snow, rain, mist, based on many sketches taken in the field.
In 1965, in a commission from the political committee of Jiangsu Province, he visits the site of Maoshan, southwest of Nanjing. This mountain is a high place of Taoism. Reforestation was initiated in 1960, in commemoration of the cantonment of Chen Yi's army during the Sino-Japanese War.
This 106 x 276 cm ink painting, completed in June 1965, includes tiny structures that attest to the civilization brought by Maoism : villages, factories and bridges in the plain, houses on the peaks. It was sold for RMB 187M including premium by Poly on June 5, 2017, lot 2245. The image is shared by China Daily in their post sale report.
Fu Baoshi died three months later from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 61. His monumental panorama of Maoshan had been his last completed work.
In 1965, in a commission from the political committee of Jiangsu Province, he visits the site of Maoshan, southwest of Nanjing. This mountain is a high place of Taoism. Reforestation was initiated in 1960, in commemoration of the cantonment of Chen Yi's army during the Sino-Japanese War.
This 106 x 276 cm ink painting, completed in June 1965, includes tiny structures that attest to the civilization brought by Maoism : villages, factories and bridges in the plain, houses on the peaks. It was sold for RMB 187M including premium by Poly on June 5, 2017, lot 2245. The image is shared by China Daily in their post sale report.
Fu Baoshi died three months later from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 61. His monumental panorama of Maoshan had been his last completed work.
1965 The Basics of Painting
2020 SOLD for $ 25.4M including premium
The very basics of painting can become a pictorial work in their own right. Roy Lichtenstein is a great questioner of the deep meaning, let's say rather of a possible meaning, of art.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1965 Studies of Pink Legs
2019 SOLD for HK$ 198M including premium
The female nude is a favorite theme to Sanyu. His art is profoundly authentic but integrates also within the Art Déco trends of his youth. The drawings are often erotic but the oil paintings are studies of forms with a deliberately minimalist palette, same as in his potted plants and animals of the same period.
Sanyu was not tempted by total abstraction. The flesh is contained in a black outline which thickens over time. Under the influence of photography, his compositions are freed from the three dimensional space, displaying from the early 1930s an exaggerated preponderance to the legs and narrowing the head.
Throughout his life, Sanyu was exercising his creativity without succeeding in pushing his career. In 1964 the project of a solo exhibition at the National Museum of History in Taipei brought hope for an international recognition. He sent 42 artworks, including a new 47 x 50 cm Nu in oil on paper.
The project is going badly and Sanyu has no longer access to his own works. In April 1965 he compensates for this frustration by making a larger version of his Nu, an oil on masonite 123 x 135 cm. The simplicity of the forms and the monochrome body on a white background bring a fine readability to this work, like a wall poster. It is the central element of a private exhibition in Paris in December 1965.
A pathetic autograph inscription on the back of the masonite testifies that the aging artist felt with this composition the maturity which he had been seeking for several decades and regretted the time lost during the years of poverty. It was too late. He died accidentally in his workshop in August 1966.
This ultimate Nu on masonite will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1029. The press release of September 16 announces an estimate in excess of HK $ 150M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Sanyu was not tempted by total abstraction. The flesh is contained in a black outline which thickens over time. Under the influence of photography, his compositions are freed from the three dimensional space, displaying from the early 1930s an exaggerated preponderance to the legs and narrowing the head.
Throughout his life, Sanyu was exercising his creativity without succeeding in pushing his career. In 1964 the project of a solo exhibition at the National Museum of History in Taipei brought hope for an international recognition. He sent 42 artworks, including a new 47 x 50 cm Nu in oil on paper.
The project is going badly and Sanyu has no longer access to his own works. In April 1965 he compensates for this frustration by making a larger version of his Nu, an oil on masonite 123 x 135 cm. The simplicity of the forms and the monochrome body on a white background bring a fine readability to this work, like a wall poster. It is the central element of a private exhibition in Paris in December 1965.
A pathetic autograph inscription on the back of the masonite testifies that the aging artist felt with this composition the maturity which he had been seeking for several decades and regretted the time lost during the years of poverty. It was too late. He died accidentally in his workshop in August 1966.
This ultimate Nu on masonite will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1029. The press release of September 16 announces an estimate in excess of HK $ 150M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1965 Study of Colors from the Swiss Mountains
2016 SOLD for RMB 165M yuan including premium
Zhang Daqian leaves mainland China after the Second World War for political reasons. This great connoisseur of Chinese graphic arts now travels a lot.
In Brazil where he settled in 1953 or during his frequent visits to the Swiss Alps, he discovered landscapes that do not exist in China. He developed in the mid-1960s an entirely new pictorial style based on splashes of colors to express from memory this new sensory experience with a spontaneity of execution inspired by the Action Painting.
For these views, Zhang sometimes uses very large formats. On December 4 in Beijing, Poly Auction sells as lot 2030 an ink and colors on silk 173 x 344 cm on the theme of the Swiss snowy mountain.
This artwork realized in 1965 is one of the first of this new phase in the art of Zhang. The horizon reveals the mountain atmosphere with twin peaks licked by clouds but the foreground is a study of colors close to abstraction from where the drawing is absent.
In the next years, Zhang will go back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. An interpretation 176 x 264 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M yuan including premium by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
In Brazil where he settled in 1953 or during his frequent visits to the Swiss Alps, he discovered landscapes that do not exist in China. He developed in the mid-1960s an entirely new pictorial style based on splashes of colors to express from memory this new sensory experience with a spontaneity of execution inspired by the Action Painting.
For these views, Zhang sometimes uses very large formats. On December 4 in Beijing, Poly Auction sells as lot 2030 an ink and colors on silk 173 x 344 cm on the theme of the Swiss snowy mountain.
This artwork realized in 1965 is one of the first of this new phase in the art of Zhang. The horizon reveals the mountain atmosphere with twin peaks licked by clouds but the foreground is a study of colors close to abstraction from where the drawing is absent.
In the next years, Zhang will go back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. An interpretation 176 x 264 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M yuan including premium by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
1965 Landscape of the Body
2020 SOLD for HK$ 170M including premium
To compensate for Sanyu's disillusionment after the cancellation of a solo exhibition in Taipei which could have ensured his international notoriety, Natacha and Etienne Lévy organize a private exhibition in their residence in Paris from December 17 to 21, 1965.
The invitation is illustrated with the artist's most innovative Nu. The nude woman is reclining with her legs in the foreground. The right leg is raised up to the top of the image like a rocky peak in a traditional Chinese landscape. The breasts and the head form a horizon of hills. This metaphor is perceived more clearly when we consider the swaying of the raised leg and the apparent distance of the head.
Inscribed with a nostalgic autograph comment dated April 1965, this 123 x 135 cm oil on masonite was considered as his ultimate masterpiece. It was sold for HK $ 198M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2019.
The Lévy family preserved photos of their event. Their friend Sanyu appears in a photo in front of another Nu of the same woman, painted in the same minimalist style and to the same scale, with an almost monochrome skin within thick black outlines over a blank background.
In this image, both legs are raised and the left foot is posed like a finial on the right knee. The outline of legs and buttocks now form a square, in an ultimate Chinese refinement that evokes yin and yang. The breasts and head now appear through a triangular opening between the legs. This undated work is almost certainly in the follow of the April 1965 version.
This oil on masonite 125 x 95 cm will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, 2020, lot 1016.
The invitation is illustrated with the artist's most innovative Nu. The nude woman is reclining with her legs in the foreground. The right leg is raised up to the top of the image like a rocky peak in a traditional Chinese landscape. The breasts and the head form a horizon of hills. This metaphor is perceived more clearly when we consider the swaying of the raised leg and the apparent distance of the head.
Inscribed with a nostalgic autograph comment dated April 1965, this 123 x 135 cm oil on masonite was considered as his ultimate masterpiece. It was sold for HK $ 198M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2019.
The Lévy family preserved photos of their event. Their friend Sanyu appears in a photo in front of another Nu of the same woman, painted in the same minimalist style and to the same scale, with an almost monochrome skin within thick black outlines over a blank background.
In this image, both legs are raised and the left foot is posed like a finial on the right knee. The outline of legs and buttocks now form a square, in an ultimate Chinese refinement that evokes yin and yang. The breasts and head now appear through a triangular opening between the legs. This undated work is almost certainly in the follow of the April 1965 version.
This oil on masonite 125 x 95 cm will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, 2020, lot 1016.
1965 Concetto Spaziale Attese by Fontana
2015 SOLD for $ 16.4M including premium by Christie's
1965 Blows through a Red Wall
2015 SOLD for $ 16M including premium
Concetto spaziale (spatial concept) is the generic title by which Lucio Fontana defines his art in the 1960s. Lacerations and holes are transforming a monochrome canvas into a kind of sculpture whose invisible reverse side expresses the beyond, impossible to reach.
The film Deserto Rosso realized by his compatriot Antonioni is released in 1964. The director introduced in this work a strong aesthetic intent including saturated colors that contrast dramatically within a bleak surrounding industrial city.
Fontana watches the movie in Venice in 1965. He comes back to his studio with a renewed mystical impulse. The artist creates blade blows into the canvas as sharp as a stroke by a brush. Imitating the wall viewed in the film, Fontana slashes 24 vertical razor lines in parallel in a red painted canvas 65 x 200 cm. A few autograph words inscribed on the reverse are indicating the source of his inspiration.
This artwork is estimated $ 15M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 11, lot 8.
For the artist, each incision strengthens his hope of attaining the knowledge. He gives the name of Attese (expectations) to this sub-series. He exploits this theme extensively on all pure colors, with a variable number of strokes. When only one scar affects the canvas, the work becomes Attesa in the singular. A red Attesa 197 x 144 cm was sold for £ 6.7 million including premium by Christie's on February 6, 2008.
The price of an Attese depends on the complexity of the positioning of the lines which the perfect gesture of the artist's hand is reproducing flawless. A white Attese 80 x 100 cm with a total of 23 slightly oblique cuts in two rows was sold for £ 8.4M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2015. A red Attese 116 x 90 cm with a total of 14 cuts in two rows was sold for $ 16.4M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's to introduce the Concetto Spaziale - Attese of the next sale.
The film Deserto Rosso realized by his compatriot Antonioni is released in 1964. The director introduced in this work a strong aesthetic intent including saturated colors that contrast dramatically within a bleak surrounding industrial city.
Fontana watches the movie in Venice in 1965. He comes back to his studio with a renewed mystical impulse. The artist creates blade blows into the canvas as sharp as a stroke by a brush. Imitating the wall viewed in the film, Fontana slashes 24 vertical razor lines in parallel in a red painted canvas 65 x 200 cm. A few autograph words inscribed on the reverse are indicating the source of his inspiration.
This artwork is estimated $ 15M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 11, lot 8.
For the artist, each incision strengthens his hope of attaining the knowledge. He gives the name of Attese (expectations) to this sub-series. He exploits this theme extensively on all pure colors, with a variable number of strokes. When only one scar affects the canvas, the work becomes Attesa in the singular. A red Attesa 197 x 144 cm was sold for £ 6.7 million including premium by Christie's on February 6, 2008.
The price of an Attese depends on the complexity of the positioning of the lines which the perfect gesture of the artist's hand is reproducing flawless. A white Attese 80 x 100 cm with a total of 23 slightly oblique cuts in two rows was sold for £ 8.4M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2015. A red Attese 116 x 90 cm with a total of 14 cuts in two rows was sold for $ 16.4M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's to introduce the Concetto Spaziale - Attese of the next sale.
1965 Zhang Daqian from Mogu to Modern
2017 SOLD for HK$ 102M including premium
Zhang Daqian began by being the best and most knowledgeable copyist of the Chinese graphic art from all periods. His moving to the vicinity of Sao Paulo in 1954 opens to him the landscapes of the world and the contact with the artistic avant-gardes. He meets Picasso in Antibes in 1956.
The mogu is a very old technique that was already practiced under the Tang, based on the observation that graphic figuration can be obtained by wash without a drawing.
Zhang brings new ideas through the use of splashes in superimposed layers for creating rare colors. In 1965 he experiments his new technique now close to abstraction with varied themes : landscapes, lotus.
Some landscapes are located in the Swiss mountains. A snowy landscape 173 x 344 cm was sold for RMB 165M yuan including premium by Poly on December 4, 2016.
Others evoke the ancient China by their title and by the insertion at the completion of the creative process of small scattered houses according to the traditional style of drawing.
Splendor of the Peak, ink and color on silk 172 x 90 cm, was sold for HK $ 34M including premium by Christie's on November 26, 2016. With a provenance from the Mei Yun Tang collection, Ancient Temples amidst Clouds, ink and color on gold paper of same size, was sold for HK $ 68M including premium by Sotheby's on May 31, 2011 and will be sold by Christie's on May 30 in Hong Kong, lot 8001.
This new style makes Zhang busy until the end of his life. Titled An Invitation to Rusticate, a magnificent 67 x 188 cm color study made in 1966 was sold for HK $ 72M including premium by Sotheby's on May 27, 2013. Realized in 1982, Peach Blossom Spring is the culmination of these subtle mingles of abstract colors and detailed drawings. This ink and colors 209 x 92 cm was sold for HK $ 270M including premium by Sotheby's on April 5, 2016.
The mogu is a very old technique that was already practiced under the Tang, based on the observation that graphic figuration can be obtained by wash without a drawing.
Zhang brings new ideas through the use of splashes in superimposed layers for creating rare colors. In 1965 he experiments his new technique now close to abstraction with varied themes : landscapes, lotus.
Some landscapes are located in the Swiss mountains. A snowy landscape 173 x 344 cm was sold for RMB 165M yuan including premium by Poly on December 4, 2016.
Others evoke the ancient China by their title and by the insertion at the completion of the creative process of small scattered houses according to the traditional style of drawing.
Splendor of the Peak, ink and color on silk 172 x 90 cm, was sold for HK $ 34M including premium by Christie's on November 26, 2016. With a provenance from the Mei Yun Tang collection, Ancient Temples amidst Clouds, ink and color on gold paper of same size, was sold for HK $ 68M including premium by Sotheby's on May 31, 2011 and will be sold by Christie's on May 30 in Hong Kong, lot 8001.
This new style makes Zhang busy until the end of his life. Titled An Invitation to Rusticate, a magnificent 67 x 188 cm color study made in 1966 was sold for HK $ 72M including premium by Sotheby's on May 27, 2013. Realized in 1982, Peach Blossom Spring is the culmination of these subtle mingles of abstract colors and detailed drawings. This ink and colors 209 x 92 cm was sold for HK $ 270M including premium by Sotheby's on April 5, 2016.
1965 15.02.65 by Zao Wou-ki
2019 SOLD for HK$ 102M including premium by Sotheby's
1965 Twenty Four Slashes in a Canvas
2018 SOLD for £ 8.7M including premium
Under the Spazialismo wording Lucio Fontana explores as early as 1947 a resolutely minimalist abstract art, neither really painting nor really sculpture, which will lead him to state that he has discovered the cosmic dimension, an artistic representation of the infinity. The more or less large hollows in the supporting structure invite the observer to imagine the beyond.
From 1960 he lacerated with his cutter the canvases coated with a monochrome water paint. This is not a perforation because the sharpness of the gesture does not remove material. It is a gate that will open to mystic knowledge. He titled Concetto spaziale - Attese (Space concept - expectation) this important series which he will execute in hundreds of units with various colors until his death in 1968.
The action of the knife becomes a reflex that allows longer, more straight and tighter slashes, always vertical or slightly leaning. His skill reaches its peak in 1965. The rest of the discussion here below only refers to Attese made on that year.
A red 116 x 90 cm Attese with 14 cuts on two rows was sold for $ 16.4M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015. Another red 65 x 200 cm with 24 cuts in one row was sold for $ 16M including premium by Sotheby's on November 11, 2015. These configurations have not been exceeded by the artist and are probably some technological limitations before risking a damage to the canvas.
White is the symbol of purity. A white Attese 80 x 100 cm with 23 cuts in two rows was sold for £ 8.4M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2015.
On March 6 in London, Christie's sells a maximum sized Attese with 24 cuts in a single row, lot 17 estimated £ 8M.
This work has some unique features. The matte white painted canvas is inserted into a black lacquered wood frame 68 x 203 x 5.5 cm which also includes an oblique bar. The glossy lacquer adds to the multidimensional illusion by reflecting the ambient room in the spirit of Pistoletto's mirror paintings.
Fontana commented his best works with an autograph inscription on the back side. He wrote about this one "Yesterday Tro-tro Klein visited me". Tro-tro is Klein's widow and Uecker's sister. Fontana has made a unique synthesis between his spatialism and the Zero Group's research on the expressive power of white monochromes.
From 1960 he lacerated with his cutter the canvases coated with a monochrome water paint. This is not a perforation because the sharpness of the gesture does not remove material. It is a gate that will open to mystic knowledge. He titled Concetto spaziale - Attese (Space concept - expectation) this important series which he will execute in hundreds of units with various colors until his death in 1968.
The action of the knife becomes a reflex that allows longer, more straight and tighter slashes, always vertical or slightly leaning. His skill reaches its peak in 1965. The rest of the discussion here below only refers to Attese made on that year.
A red 116 x 90 cm Attese with 14 cuts on two rows was sold for $ 16.4M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015. Another red 65 x 200 cm with 24 cuts in one row was sold for $ 16M including premium by Sotheby's on November 11, 2015. These configurations have not been exceeded by the artist and are probably some technological limitations before risking a damage to the canvas.
White is the symbol of purity. A white Attese 80 x 100 cm with 23 cuts in two rows was sold for £ 8.4M including premium by Sotheby's on February 10, 2015.
On March 6 in London, Christie's sells a maximum sized Attese with 24 cuts in a single row, lot 17 estimated £ 8M.
This work has some unique features. The matte white painted canvas is inserted into a black lacquered wood frame 68 x 203 x 5.5 cm which also includes an oblique bar. The glossy lacquer adds to the multidimensional illusion by reflecting the ambient room in the spirit of Pistoletto's mirror paintings.
Fontana commented his best works with an autograph inscription on the back side. He wrote about this one "Yesterday Tro-tro Klein visited me". Tro-tro is Klein's widow and Uecker's sister. Fontana has made a unique synthesis between his spatialism and the Zero Group's research on the expressive power of white monochromes.
