Lucio Fontana (Italian, 1899-1968)Concetto Spaziale, Natura 1959-1960 incised with the artist's initials and numbered 1/2 on the undersidebronze 41 by 51 by 47 cm.16 1/8 by 20 1/16 by 18 1/2 in. This work was conceived in 1959-1960 and cast at a later date. This work is number 1 from and edition of 2, plus 1 artist's proof. Footnotes:Provenance Teresita Rasini Fontana Collection, MilanMarlborough Gallery, RomeKasper Koenig, ColognePrivate CollectionSale: Sotheby's, London, The Italian Sale, 7 October 2016, Lot 40Acquired directly from the above by the present owner Exhibited Krefeld, Galerie Merian Edition, Lucio Fontana, 1899-1968, 1973, n.p., another example illustrated in black and whiteCaracas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Lucio Fontana, 1974-1975, no. 32 (another example exhibited) Verbania-Pallanza, Museo del Paesaggio, Biennale Internazionale di scultura contemporanea, Aptico: Il Senso della Scultura, 1976 (another example exhibited) Milan, Palazzo Reale, La Donazione Lucio Fontana: proposta per una sistemazione museografica, 1979, p. 107, no. 74, illustrated in black and white (terracotta version)Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Fontana, 1980, p. 64, no. 38, another example illustrated in black and whiteMilan, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Pubblico Privato, Omaggio al Mecenatismo, 1981 (another example exhibited)Milan, Palazzo della Permanente, Il segno della pittura e della scultura, 1983, no. 1 (not illustrated), p. 56, illustrated in black and white (installation view, terracotta version)Milan, CIMAC, Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Palazzo Reale, Arte italiana 1900-1980, 1984 (terracotta version)Tokyo, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Seibu-Ikebukuro, Fontana, 1984, n.p., no. 21, another example illustrated in black and whiteBologna, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Scultura e ceramica in Italia nel Novecento, 1989, p. 85, no. 52, illustrated in black and white (installation view, terracotta version)Milan, Palazzo della Permanente, Scultura a Milano 1945-1990, 1990, pp. 65 and 174, illustrated in black and white (terracotta version)Tokyo, The Yomiuri Shimbun and Mitsukoshi Museum; Kagoshima, Museo Municipale d'Arte; Nishinomiya, Otani Museum of Art, Lucio Fontana, La penetrazione dello spazio, 1992, p. 107, no. 76, another example illustrated in black and whiteVarese, Castello di Masnago, Scultura a Varese, dal verismo a oggi, 1994, no. 45 (another example exhibited) Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Fontana, 1994-1995, p. 129, no. 81, another example illustrated in colour (installation view)Venice, Giardini di Castello, Padiglione Italia, La Biennale di Venezia, 46° Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte. Identitá e alteritá, figure del corpo 1895-1995, 1995, p. 514, no. IX 21, another example illustrated in black and whitePrato, Museo Pecci, Burri e Fontana 1949-1968, 1996, p. 169, no. 30, illustrated in colour (terracotta version)Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Lucio Fontana, Retrospektive, 1996 – 1997, p. 201, no. 161, another example illustrated in colourPalma de Mallorca, Fundación La Caixa; Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Lucio Fontana, Entre matéria y espacio, 1998, p. 105, no. 56, another example illustrated in colourMilan, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea; Triennale di Milano; Museo Diocesano; Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera; Museo Teatrale alla Scala; Centenario di Lucio Fontana, 1999, pp. 58 and 124, nos. I, 114; IV, 18, another example illustrated in black and white and in colourLondon, Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1999-2000, p. 35, no. 17, illustrated in black and white (installation view, terracotta version)Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil; São Paulo, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Lucio Fontana, A òtica do invisivel, 2001-2002, p. 131, another example illustrated in colourBurgdorf, Museum Franz Gertsch, Lucio Fontana, 2004, p. 141, no. 94, another example illustrated in colourNew York, Gagosian Gallery, Lucio Fontana, Ambiente Spaziali, 2012, p. 257, no. 281, another example illustrated in colourParis, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Lucio Fontana, 2014, no. 148 (another example exhibited) Literature Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue raisonné des peintures et environments spatiaux, II, Brussels 1974, p 107, no. 59/60 N 25, illustrated in black and white (terracotta version) Enrico Crispolti, Erotismo nell'arte astratta (e altre schede per una iconologia dell'arte astratta), Trapani 1976, no. 9, illustrated in black and white (terracotta version)Enrico Crispolti, Fontana, Catalogo Generale, Volume primo, Milan 1986, p. 356, no. 59-60 N 25, illustrated (terracotta version)Enrico Crispolti, Fontana, Milan 1999, p. 194, no. 202, illustrated in colour (terracotta version)Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo ragionato di sculture, dipinti, ambientazioni, Tomo I, Milan 2006, p. 536, no. 59-60 N 25, illustrated in black and white (terracotta version) Despite being best known for his slashed monochrome paintings, Lucio Fontana considered himself a sculptor above all else. Born in Rosario, Argentina in 1899, the artist moved to Milan at a young age and later trained at the Accademia di Brera under the tutelage of the refined representational sculptor Adolfo Wildt. The son of an Italian sculptor, Fontana's early life was based around his devotion to his father's craft. Whilst he first produced work in line with the prevalent aesthetic of the time, the Novecento Italiano movement that embraced Italy's renowned representational tradition, the highly finished technique of his work gradually became looser and looser, paving its way away from Novecento and closer to pure abstraction. In 1934 the artist joined the Parisian group Abstraction-Création, just as his friend Fausto Melotti did one year after. In 1935, Fontana moved to the small coastal town of Albisola the epicentre of Italian ceramic research and production where his ceramic investigations began in earnest. Whilst attempting an array of traditional subject matter from fantasias, rampant horses, lions, sibyls, warriors to saints and crucifixes, Fontana's execution was in a simultaneously loose and intense manner, the plasticity of clay acting as the perfect material for his firm and expressive manipulation. During World War II Fontana returned to Argentina where, in 1946, he published the Manifesto Blanco, which included his first ideas on Spatialism – lifting 'spatial' qualities of art above visual and aesthetic ones. After the war, Fontana came back to Italy and in 1947, he became the co-founder of the Milan based Movimento Spaziale, which operated according to the Manifesto Blanco, serving as a great influence and inspiration to the German ZERO group and their Dutch counterpart, Nul. Fontana's studio in Milan had been destroyed in the war, and as with many artists of that period, this destruction would reveal itself in many aspects of his work. Humanity went through a rapid technological advancement in the mid-twentieth century, with more progress made in fifty years than in the previous five hundred. Science in many ways replaced religion and Fontana called for art to shed its historical and conformist frameworks and fundamentally update its spirit and method. The response to his own doctrine was to create art that explored a new dimension, almost irrespective of the artistic media – a concept that is encapsulated perfectly in the present work. Concetto Spaziale, Natura is one of a series of forty-four individual works created between 1959 and 1960 in Albissola. Moulded and shaped from terracotta, with some subsequently cast in bronze, the sculptures would fall into two broad categories dependent on the in... This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com