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8 - MIMMO ROTELLA (1918-2006) "Caccia al Ladro", Cary Grant & Gr…
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Estimate €500 - €1,000
Sale commission
Description
MIMMO ROTELLA (1918-2006) "Caccia al Ladro", Cary Grant & Grace Kelly Technique in peeling off a torn poster, signed in pencil by the artist lower right with the handwritten mention "P.A." lower left for a rare artist's proof. Baguette frame to be replaced. Size : 70 x 100 cm Attached is a certificate of authenticity from Preziosi, Palazzo Maraini in Lugano. - After studying art in Naples, he moved to Rome in 1945 and began a career as a painter. After a figurative start, he developed a neo-geometric mode of pictorial expression without success. In 1949, in search of an alternative mode of expression, he invented a form of poetry he called "epistaltic", and established his first contact with French artists exhibiting in Paris at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in 1951. In 1951-1952, he travelled to the United States to exhibit, where he met artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. Returning to Rome in 1953, convinced that everything in art had already been done, he came out of it thanks to what he called a "Zen illumination": the discovery of the advertising poster as a means of artistic expression: he began pasting pieces of torn posters onto canvas. His work exploited the "double décollage" (poster torn from its support and then ripped up in the studio) and poster backgrounds. This was the moment of consecration, his work was recognised, the critics spotted his work and hailed him as one of the representatives of "young Roman painting". Rotella moved to Paris, where he developed a mass-production process based on projecting negative images onto emulsified canvas, a work he called Reportage or Mec-art (1965). In 1975, he came up with plastiforms, pieces of torn posters glued onto three-dimensional polyurethane supports. Another experiment, during the same period, involved crumpling up posters and enclosing them in Plexiglas cubes.
See original version (French)
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About the sale Classic Art, Modern, Post-war & Design
Auction location
Auction time 06/10/2026 at 10:30 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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