Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attese. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

signed, titled, inscribed and dated 'l. Fontana "Concetto Spaziale" ATTESE Una montagna di merda da scalare' (on the reverse), waterpaint on canvas, 21¾ x 18 1/8in. (55.2 x 46cm.). Executed in 1968. Price Realized: £601,250

Provenance: Camuffo Collection, Venice.
Galerie Mathias Fels, Paris.
Akira Ikeda Gallery, Nagoya.
Takehiko Tanabe Collection, Nagoya.
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. 68 T 32, p. 198 (illustrated, p. 199).
E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo generale, vol. II, Milan 1986, no. 68 T 32 (illustrated, p. 683).
E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana: Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, vol. II, Milan 2006, no. 68 T 32 (illustrated, p. 877).

Note: 'The man of today... is too lost in a dimension that is immense for him, is too oppressed by the triumphs of science, is too dismayed by the inventions that follow one after the other, to recognise himself in figurative painting. What is wanted is an absolutely new language' (L. Fontana, quoted in A. White, Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London 2011, p. 260).

Christie's. Post-War and Contemporary Art (Evening Auction). 13 February 2013. London, King Street