Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana (Italian: [ˈluːtʃo fonˈtaːna]; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist.[1] He's known as the founder of Spatialism and exponent of abstract painting as the first known artist to slash his canvases - which symbolizes an utter rejection of all prerequisites of art.
Lucio Fontana
Early life[edit]
Born in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, to Italian immigrant parents, he was the son of the sculptor Luigi Fontana (1865–1946).[2][3] Fontana spent the first years of his life in Argentina and then was sent to Italy in 1905, where he stayed until 1922, working as a sculptor with his father, and then on his own. Already in 1926, he participated in the first exhibition of Nexus, a group of young Argentine artists working in Rosario de Santa Fé.[4]
Exhibitions[edit]
Fontana had his first solo exhibitions at Galleria del Milione, Milan, in 1931.[21] In 1961, Michel Tapié organized his first show in the U.S., an exhibition of the Venice series, at the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York. His first solo exhibition at an American museum was held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1966.[22] He participated in the Bienal de São Paulo and in numerous exhibitions around the world. Among others, major retrospectives have been organized by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2006), Hayward Gallery, London (1999), Fondazione Lucio Fontana (1999), and the Centre Pompidou (1987; traveled to La Fundación 'la Caixa' Barcelona; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Whitechapel Gallery, London).[7] Since 1930 Fontana's work had been exhibited regularly at the Venice Biennale, and he represented Argentina various times; he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale of 1966. In 2014, the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris dedicates a retrospective to the artist. Tornabuoni art held a parallel show in its Avenue Matignon Paris gallery space.[23] The first major American retrospective since the artist's death came in 2019 at the Met Breuer.[24]
Collections[edit]
Fontana's works can be found in the permanent collections of more than one hundred museums around the world. In particular, examples from the Pietre series are housed in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, the Museum of Contemporary Art Villa Croce in Genoa and the van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.[25] Fontana's jewelry is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[26]
Art market[edit]
Italian scholar Enrico Crispolti edited a two-volume catalogue raisonné of Fontana's paintings, sculptures and environments in 2006. In 2013, Luca Massimo Barbero, Nina Ardemagni Laurini and Silvia Ardemagni published a three-volume catalogue raisonné of Fontana's works on paper, including more than 5,500 works in chronological order.[27]
A rare, large crimson work with a single slash, which Fontana dedicated to his wife and which has always been known as the Teresita, fetched £6.7 million ($11.6 million) at Christie's London in 2008, then an auction record for the artist.[28] Fontana's Concetto Spaziale, Attese (1965), from the collection of Anna-Stina Malmborg Hoglund and Gunnar Hoglund set a new record for a slash painting at £8.4 million at Sotheby's London in 2015.[29] Even more popular are Fontana's oval canvases. Sotheby's sold a work titled Concetto spaziale, la fine di dio (1963) for £10.32 million in 2008.[30] Part of Fontana's Venice circle, Festival on the Grand Canal was sold at Christie's in New York for $7 million in 2008.[31]
In November 2015, Christie's set an auction record for the artist's work Concetto spaziale, la fine di dio, 1964, sold for $29 million.[32]
