Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), Concetto Spaziale, Attese. Photo Sotheby's

signed, titled and inscribed Se vado a spasso mi fa male una gamba on the reverse waterpaint on canvas; 65 by 54cm. 25 5/8 by 21 1/4 in. Executed in 1965. Estimate 600,000-700,000 GBP

PROVENANCE! Ch.H. Yalem, St Louis
Father Maurice McNamee, St Louis
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Post War and Contemporary Art, 6 December 1990, Lot 43
Private Collection, Italy (acquired directly from the above)
Sale: Brearte, Milan, Arte contemporanea dipinti acquarelli disegni, 5 November 1992, Lot 194
Club dell'Arte, Milano
Acquired from the above by the present owner

EXHIBITED: Lerici, Castello Monumentale, Primo '900. Partecipazione e solitudine dell'arte, 1991, p. 31, illustrated

LITERATURE: Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Brussels 1974, p. 164, no. 65 T 102, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Generale, Vol. II, Milan 1986, p. 578, no. 65 T 102, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Milan 2006, p. 764, no. 65 T 102, illustrated

NOTE: "Lucio Fontana... challenges the history of painting. With one bold stroke he pierces the canvas and tears it to shreds. Through this action he declares before the entire world that the canvas is no longer a pictorial vehicle and asserts that easel painting, a constant in art heretofore, is called into question. Implied in this gesture is both the termination of a five-hundred year evolution in Western painting and a new beginning, for destruction carries innovation in its wake". Erika Billeter in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Lucio Fontana 1899-1968: A Retrospective, 1977, p. 13

Lucio Fontana's stunning Concetto Spaziale, Attese from 1965 is an elegantly sublime archetype of the artist's legendary tagli works. The silken white expanse is pierced by three long black cuts, striking through the picture plane into the conceptual infinity of the space beyond in a bravura exhibition of the artist's famed philosophy of 'Spatialism'.

The white monochrome field of the canvas is an expanse of serenity, harnessing enduring and powerful connotations of innocence and purity. It also frames the white of light and heat; a beam of white light holds within it the full spectrum of colour, revealed when it is refracted through an optical prism; and white has often symbolised technology and the future, particularly in the decades following the Second World War. The alluring white arena of Concetto Spaziale, Attese is ablaze with energy, acting as apt parallel to Fontana's idea of the artist as the source of creative energy, and provides the perfect setting for his conception of pure space. 

The artistic theory behind the creation of the tagli was professed in Fontana's first manifesto, the Manifesto Blanco, published in 1946. Here Fontana proposed the birth of a new 'Spatialist' art, an art which would harness technological progression in its quest to articulate the 'fourth dimension'. Fontana proposed the artist as the source of creative energy, anticipating future events and engaging with technological advancement. Ceaselessly engaged with the scientific and technical evolutions achieved throughout the Twentieth Century, he incorporated these ideas into his art with a dynamic exploration of method, material and medium. A few years following the punctures and piercings of the buchi, Fontana sharpened his gesture: the elaboration of the hole finds its definitive expression in the elegantly vigorous tagli cut which would dominate Fontana's oeuvre thereafter.

Fontana began his process of making the cuts by painting the canvas ground with industrial emulsion in pure monochrome. While the canvas surface was still damp he placed it on an easel and executed the cut with a Stanleyknife in a single, precise downward movement. The canvas was then left to dry, the incision in place. There was no room for error: if the cut deviated from Fontana's desired line, the entire canvas was discarded, the work destroyed. The cut, as unrepeatable as a brushstroke, could not be corrected. Once the slit was made Fontana would enlarge the furrow with his hand, gently opening the sides of the cut. To hold the cut in place, Fontana applied black gauze to the reverse, covering the cut from top to bottom. The final gesture would complete the work: the lightest touch of his hand would ease the edges of the incision slightly inwards, instilling the suggestion of three dimensional form to the flat canvas.

Sotheby's, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London | 15 Feb 2012 www.sothebys.com