Salvatore Scarpitta

Exhibited by ML Fine Art

Material Bandages and mixed media on board

Dimensions 53.3 × 50.8 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

Salvatore Scarpitta's artistic career began with success in Rome, where he participated in the Quadriennale in 1948 and held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Chiurazzi the following year. In the 1950s, he exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States and was invited to the Venice Biennale in 1952, 1956 and 1958. In 1958, he exhibited his extroflexed canvases and works with tensioned bandages for the first time at the Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome.

These works brought a breath of fresh originality to the Roman art world and inspired numerous Italian and international artists. In 1958, Scarpitta met Leo Castelli in Rome, who invited him to exhibit at his gallery in New York. In December 1958, he returned to the United States, where he exhibited his bandage works at the Leo Castelli Gallery the following January. This exhibition marked the beginning of a fruitful working relationship and friendship between Leo Castelli and the artist, documented by the numerous solo and group exhibitions in which Scarpitta participated in the following decades, the last of which opened in January 1998 to celebrate the gallery's 40th anniversary.

Show moreless

Provenance

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York;
Galleria Notizie, Turin;

Private Collection, Turin;

Galleria L’Elefante, Treviso;

Private Collection, Treviso;
Galleria Niccoli, Parma;

Sotheby’s Milan, 20/05/2015 sale, lot 22;

Collezione Walter Fontana (purchased at the above sale).

Literature

L. Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta. Catalogue Raisonnè, Milan ed. Mazzotta 2005, no. 263, p. 176 and p. 320 full-page colour ill.;

Chieti, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Astrattismo italiano 1910-1970, 2006, no .49;

Rome, Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Cento anni di arte italiana alla Farnesina, 2006;

Pescara, Museo d’Arte Moderna Vittorio Colonna, L’arte e la Tartaruga, omaggio a Plinio de Martiis, 2007, p. 81

Turin, GAM, Salvatore Scarpitta, 2012-2013, p. 141.