SOTHEBY’S TO SELL WORKS FROM THE ‘SAMMLUNG LENZ SCHÖNBERG’ SOTHEBY’S TO SELL WORKS FROM THE
‘SAMMLUNG LENZ SCHÖNBERG’--- Sale To Include SignificantWorks by Yves Klein, Lucio
Fontana and Piero Manzoni
Nouveau réalisme but also of the
wider revolution in painting and sculpture that took place in the middle of the Twentieth Century.
YVES KLEIN 1928 - 1962
MG 25
gold leaf on panel
53 by 51cm.
Executed in 1961
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1986
800,000 GBP - 1,200,000 GBP
The archetype of Klein’s stunning cycle of Monogold paintings,
MG 25 encapsulates his brilliant and pioneering path of
ontological artistic enquiry. Paralleling the achievements of his
eponymous International Klein Blue Monochromes, the lustrous
and subtly variegated gold leaf surface of MG 25 radiates a
captivating golden aura and evokes rich connotations from the
sacred to the alchemical. The medium also forges a thematic link
between the polar opposites of materiality and the immaterial. As
denoted by the inscription on the reverse, Klein gave this work to
4 his friend the esteemed American sculptor Richard Stankiewicz, which further enriches the extraordinary narrative of this
unique and historic work.
LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968
CONCETTO SPAZIALE, RITRATTO DI CARLO CARDAZZO
oil, mixed media and glass stones on canvas
125 by 85cm.
Executed in 1956
1,000,000 GBP - 1,500,000 GBP
Fontana’s spectacular painting Concetto spaziale, Ritratto di Carlo Cardazzo belongs to the very highest tier of the Pietri series that occupied the artist from 1951 to 1958. While other examples from this series are now housed in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, this painting is one of only seven Pietri works of at least this scale that remain in private collections. Widely admired as a portrait of Fontana’s friend Carlo Cardazzo, it is the only Pietri painting that has this designated subtitle in addition to the ubiquitous Concetto spaziale. Cardazzo
had opened the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in 1946 and became Fontana’s first dealer after the artist’s return from Argentina the following year. Indeed this painting was created in the same year as an exhibition at Cardazzo’s gallery celebrated the first ten years of Spatialism.
LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968
CONCETTO SPAZIALE (VENICE)
copper
198 by 98cm.
Executed in 1962/63.
1,500,000 GBP - 2,000,000 GBP
Dominated by Fontana’s single vertical slash, Concetto spaziale (Venice) is an iconic artwork of irresistible visual power that conflates the artist’s most recognisable creative gesture with his pioneering employment of unconventional materials. The serrated incision has been viscerally torn through the reflective copper expanse, rupturing the smooth surface and cutting a narrow window onto the infinite space of the Spatialist void beyond the picture plane. At the same time, the scored oval line that
circumscribes the tagli slash invokes themes of cyclical continuity and the infinite, as well as sculpting the metal into a landscape of lyrical fragmentation.
LUCIO FONTANA 1899 - 1968
CONCETTO SPAZIALE
signed
copper
200 by 100cm.
Executed in 1964
1,500,000 GBP - 2,000,000 GBP
Lucio Fontana’s majestic Concetto spaziale epitomizes the artist’s Metalli corpus of punctured and lacerated copper panels that stand today as icons of his legendary Abstract Spatialism.
