Mimmo Rotella,
 
Italian 1918-2006-
 
 
Untitled, 1956;
 
 
décollage on hardboard (faesite), signed...

Mimmo Rotella,

Italian 1918-2006-

Untitled, 1956;

décollage on hardboard (faesite), signed lower right, 35.5x42cm (ARR)

Provenance: Private Collection, Rome; Il Ponte Casa d'Aste, 12 June 2019, lot 271; Private Collection, London

Note: This work is registered in the Mimmo Rotella Foundation, Milan, under n. 2352 DC s.d./956ca.

Lots 143 and 144 are by Mimmo Rotella, an Italian artist who was a seminal force in the development of European post-war art.

It was in the 1950s that Rotella started to develop his recognisable style, after having travelled to the USA on a Fullbright Scholarship in 1951-2, where he encountered some of the leading artists of the twentieth century, including Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, Yves Klein, and Robert Rauschenberg. The radical nature of these artists approaches undoubtedly influenced Rotellas own work, including the development of the décollages for which he is best known. These décollages, constructed from ripped film posters, by their very nature blur the boundaries between high and low art. This approach led Rotella to align himself with the Nouveau Réalisme movement founded by contemporaries Pierre Restany and Yves Klein in 1960.

Rotellas work has been the subject of exhibitions in his lifetime: his first solo exhibition was held at the Gallerie Chiurazzi in Rome in 1951, and he was chosen to represent Italy at the Venice Biennale in 1961. His artwork has been included in exhibitions at the Guggenheim in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Décollages, such as this, are in the collections of galleries such as the Tate Modern in London, MoMA in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection in Venice.