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PostWar & Contemporary
3436* LUCIO FONTANA(Rosario/Argentina 1899 - 1968 Comab-
bio)
Natura morta. 1950-55.
Plate. Ceramic painted in brown, yellow,
pink, green and blue, glazed.
With the incised signature: L. Fontana.
Diameter 50 cm.
The work is registered at the Fondazione
Lucio Fontana, Milan, under the number:
3357/1. We thank the archive for his kind
support.
Provenance: Former private collection Italy.
As early as 1935 Lucio Fontana was gai-
ning experience in the ceramics work-
shops of Albissola Mare and then in 1937
in Sèvres, with the result that he knew the
material thoroughly, knew how to handle it,
and, as we can see here, was fully in com-
mand of it. The soft, malleable material
allowed him experiment, and so it turned
out that the first cuts (tagli) were produced
in the ceramic works, before they were ap-
plied to the paintings. In Fontana’s art the
main question is the idea (concetto) and in
the sounding out and further development
of that idea, genres and techniques have
no role to play.
The plate offered here at auction is a
wonderful example on the one hand of
his ceramic work, but on the other hand,
above all, of his concept and its thorough
implementation. Since a canvas in the
traditional sense before Fontana was
always two-dimensional, so the base of
a plate was always flat, so that it could be
used. Lucio Fontana broke with all these
traditions: the canvas was cut and thereby
opened up to three-dimensionality; the
base of a plate was moulded, so that a
sculpture emerged, which enlarged the
space. In addition there are also cuts on
our plate, so that the artist has removed
its actual function and submitted it com-
pletely to his concept.
The exceptional importance of his ceramic
work is also apparent in its influence on
his direct successors, such as the ZERO
artists, but also the next generation of ar-
tists such as Thomas Schütte, Rosemarie
Trockel and Norbert Sprangenberg.
CHF 60 000 / 80 000
(€ 55 560 / 74 070)