Beschreibung:

Property from an Important Private CollectionKazuo Shiraga1924 - 2008Untitled (T41) signedoil on canvas116 x 91 cm; 45 ⅔ x 35 4/5 in.Executed in 1962.__________________________________________________________________________ Provenant d'une Importante Collection ParticulièreKazuo Shiraga1924 - 2008Untitled (T41) signéhuile sur toile116 x 91 cm; 45 ⅔ x 35 4/5 in.Exécuté en 1962.Condition reportFor further information on the condition of this lot please contact joelle.koops@sothebys.com ProvenanceGalerie Rodolphe Stadler, ParisPrivate collection, France (acquired from the above)Private collection, Asia (acquired from the above)__________________________________________________________________________ Galerie Rodolphe Stadler, ParisCollection particulière, France (acquis auprès de cette dernière)Collection particulière, Asie (acquis auprès de cette dernière)Catalogue noteUntitled (T41) was executed in 1962, a decisive year for the artist that set the stage for the international period of his career. Indeed, after being discovered by the French art critic Michel Tapié during a trip to Osaka, undertaken in 1957 alongside Georges Mathieu Shiraga was invited to take part in a group exhibition organised by the Galerie Stadler in Paris. The invitation was renewed in 1962, constituting the first solo exhibition ever dedicated to the artist outside Japan. Rodolphe Stadler acquired Untitled (T41) from the artist immediately after its execution, underlining the exceptional character of this work. In the autumn, the artist opened a solo exhibition of his works at the Gutai Pinacotheca in Osaka, a landmark exhibition in the artist's career, bringing together works of great quality. A graduate in traditional Japanese painting (Nihonga), Kazuo Shiraga sought to link this heritage with his interest in European and American art while transcending these influences in order to create an art that would resonate throughout the world. To this end, in 1952 the artist co-founded The Zero Society (Zero-kai), a conceptual avant-garde group, alongside artists Akira Kanayama and Saburo Murakami. Three years later, the group merged with Gutai at the request of its founder, Jiro Yoshihara. It was during this period that Shiraga experimented for the first time with his famous "foot paintings", the result of a ritual during which the artist, suspended from a rope fixed to the ceiling of his studio, prints the imprint of the movements of his bare feet sliding on the material. In doing so, Shiraga is in line with the most revolutionary artists of his time. On the one hand, the support is no longer placed on an easel, but on the ground, which is reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's physical exercise immortalised in the early 1950s by the photographer Hans Namuth This substitution of the traditional brush for the human body was regularly adopted by Yves Klein too, in his "Anthropometries" from 1958 onwards. Klein commented on the actions of Gutai in these terms: "I will speak of this group of Japanese painters who, with the greatest ardour, used my method in a very strange way. These painters turned themselves into living brushes. By immersing themselves in colour and rolling around on their canvases, they became representatives of ultra-action painting" (Yves Klein quoted in Alfred Pacquement "Kazuo Shiraga: Painting as Ritual" in Cat Exp, Toyoshina, Azumino Municipal Museum of Modern Art; Amagasaki, Cultural Center; Hekinan City, Tatsukichi Fujii Museum of Contemporary Art, Kazuo Shiraga Painting Born Out of Fighting, April 25 - December 27, 2009.) The present work is exemplary of the struggle that took place between the artist and the canvas. The impasto and paint spatters that punctuate the surface are relics of the energy Shiraga expended during the performative act that constitutes the genesis of his work. A sense of violence emanates from it, translating a cathartic trance, heightened by the use of a powerful red pigment that dominates the composition. Des