Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale. photo: Christie's Images Ltd., 2012

signed 'l. Fontana' (lower right); signed and titled 'l. Fontana "Concetto Spaziale"' (on the reverse); oil on canvas; 31 7/8 x 26in. (81 x 65cm.). Executed in 1963-64. Estimate £280,000 - £350,000

Provenance; Reif Collection, Milan.

Galleria Seno, Milan.

Galleria Sianesi, Milan.

G. Castelli Collection, Gorgonzola.

Acquired from the above by the present owner. 

Literature; E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogue raisonné des peintures, sculptures et environnements spatiaux, vol. II, Brussels 1974, no. 63-64 O 6 (illustrated, p. 141).

E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo generale, vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 63-64 O 6 (illustrated, p. 479).

T. Trini, Lucio Fontana, Milan 1986 (illustrated, p. 63).

E. Pontiggia, Presenze dell'Informale in Italia, 1994 (illustrated, p. 25).

E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 63-64 O 6 (illustrated, p. 671). 

Exhibited: Messina, Palazzo dei Leoni, Lucio Fontana, 1986-1987, no. 21 (illustrated in colour, p. 63).

Codogno, Palazzo Ex Ospedale Soave, Presenze dell'Informale in Italia, 1994

Milan, Galleria Blu, Stasera inauguro la mia mostra da Palazzoli, 1999 (illustrated in colour, p. 93).

Notes: Concetto spaziale belongs among Fontana's Olii, the distinctive series of highly textural oil paintings that he began in 1960, which culminated in 1961 with his Venice cycle, and in 1963 with the Fine di Dio (End of God) paintings. The Olii aimed to incorporate the sumptuous, malleable and material qualities of the traditional medium of oil paint into Fontana's 'Spatialist' enterprise. They were a development on his aesthetic of the void, allowing Fontana--the trained sculptor--the further potential to engage more directly with the plastic nature of Spatialist painting. 

Fontana covered each Olii in a thick coat of oil paint. While the paint was still wet, he studded the canvas with gaping holes and gashes, manipulating the wet pigment around the ruptures, as if to suggest wounds in flesh. The articulation of these holes was especially important to Fontana who was seeking through them to express a similar sense of torment to that which he had explored in the rough-hewn craters of his large terracotta Natura or 'Nature sculptures' of 1959 and 1960. In the present work, the artist clearly revels in the viscous quality of his materials and the interplay of depth from void to tactile relief. The luscious green surface is also etched with fine meandering lines that encircle the painting's corporeal nucleus. Significantly, the lines are created by a removal, rather than an application of paint. By scraping away to create furrows as his defining line, Fontana mimics the duality of absence and presence caused by the punctured holes. This enigmatic perimeter, typical of the oil paintings of this period, were later described by Fontana as 'the path of man in space, his dismay and horror of going astray', whilst the incisions represented 'the subsequent gesture of an anxiety that had grown unbearable' (L. Fontana quoted in B. Hess, Lucio Fontana, 1899-1968: A New Fact In Sculpture, Cologne, 2006, p. 68).

The monochrome canvas of Concetto spaziale is therefore an emblem of Fontana's feelings towards the evolution of space travel and its metaphysical implications for humankind. Man's adventures beyond the stratosphere had provoked Fontana to imagine a new kind of utopian art which initially took the form of neon light displays and televisual experimentations. But his attitude would gradually change as he began to contemplate the 'physiological anguish' of the astronaut drifting through the infinite, and how this affected the understanding of our place in the universe. Fontana's violently gouged paintings are an attempt to give visual form to this experience. He has covered Concetto spaziale in stridently coloured oil paint to draw attention to the whole canvas as a physical object, then he has torn through this seemingly solid matter to annihilate traditional conceptions of both artistic and physical space.

In this way, the painting is used as a conceptual marker of the past, and as platform for the bold leap towards an art based on movement, temporality and the notion of the eternal.

Christies. Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction. 15 February 2012. London, King Street www.christies.com