Beschreibung:

Lucio Fontana Follow Concetto spaziale, Natura signed 'L Fontana' on the underside bronze 65 x 71 x 72 cm (25 5/8 x 27 7/8 x 28 3/8 in.) Executed in 1959-1960 and cast during the artist's lifetime.
Provenance Paolo Marinotti, Switzerland (acquired directly from the artist circa 1960) Thence by descent to the present owner Exhibited Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Lucio Fontana , 5 February - 28 March 1970, no. 206, fig. 196, p. 63 (illustrated, erroneously dated 1960 - 1961) Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Lucio Fontana 10 June 1970 - 6 September 1970, no. 55 (illustrated, erroneously dated 1960 - 1961) Milan, Palazzo Reale, Lucio Fontana , 19 April - 21 June 1972, fig. 146, p. 307 (illustrated, p. 194, erroneously dated 1960 - 1961) Mantova, Casa del Mantegna, Lucio Fontana Teatrini, 19 July – 28 September 1997 (illustrated, p. 67, dated 1959) Literature Francesco De Bartolomeis, Segno Antidisegno di Lucio Fontana , Turin, 1967, no. 167, n.p. (illustrated) Guido Ballo, Fontana: idea per un ritratto , Turin, 1970, fig. 253, pp. 212-213 & 258 (illustrated, erroneously dated 1960 - 1961) Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures, Scultures et Environnements Spatiaux, vol. I and II, Brussels, 1974, no. 59-60 N 11, p. 69, pp. 104-105 (illustrated, p. 105) Enrico Crispolti, Fontana, Catalogo generale , vol. I, Milan, 1986, no. 59-60 N 11, p. 353 (incorrectly catalogued as one of the 2 casts numbered and stamped 1/2 and 2/2) Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. I, Milan, 2006, no. 59-60 N 11, p. 532 (incorrectly catalogued as one of the 2 casts numbered and stamped 1/2 and 2/2) Catalogue Essay Concetto spaziale, Natura is an early and rare life time cast of one of Lucio Fontana’s so-called ‘balls’, dating from 1959-60. The Nature were initially created in clay in Albisola, where Fontana spent time each year, and which had a thriving ceramics industry. In addition to the present signed and lifetime bronze cast, this model was also subsequently cast in bronze in a further edition of two, stamped with the initials and numbered 1/2 and 2/2, one of which was acquired by Nelson Rockefeller and is now part of Kykuit, the residence which he bequeathed on his death to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The present cast was acquired directly from the artist by Paolo Marinotti, a textiles magnate and philanthropist. It was he who converted the Palazzo Grassi in Venice into an exhibition venue, a status it still enjoys to this day. The present work was lent from Marinotti’s collection to several exhibitions in Paris, Turin and Milan in the years shortly after Fontana’s death in 1968. These helped to consolidate the reputation and legacy of the artist. Concetto spaziale, Natura and its sister-sculptures form a small yet highly significant series within Fontana’s work, created in a brief window, adding to their rarity. This is all the more true of the casts created during Fontana’s life, and under his guidance, rather than the posthumous casts which were also made in subsequent years. Of the large life-time casts such as Concetto spaziale, Natura , approximately two thirds are in public collections and institutions, including Tate, London, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm and the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen. The Natura sculptures revealed Fontana’s heightened awareness of the past, the present and the future. The return to the raw materials of sculpture, embodied in the clay mass in which he gouged the gaping hole so visible in Concetto spaziale, Natura , marked a recognition of his own artistic beginnings, as a sculptor as well as the son and grandson of sculptors. At the same time, the creative gesture he has enacted places this work squarely within the realms of the Spatial Art he had pioneered over the previous two decades. Fontana was not only making a space within the fabric of the clay in Concetto spaziale, Natura , he was also emphasising its own mass and volume by tunnelling into it. In this, Fontana can be seen to be shifting beyond the legacy of the great Italian sculptor, Medardo Rosso whose works often appear to reveal for