CONTEMPORARY ART
 

Hidden Face, 1984

Bronze sculpture. Signature engraved on the right side of the neck, with the serial number 121/3250. Polish artist, mainly dedicated to sculpture but also set designer and painter, Igor Mitoraj draws extensively from the classical world and the protagonists of Greek myths to create a repertoire of figures with which to build his own very personal mythology. Heads, faces, eyes, mouths are elaborated by Mitoraj and returned to the viewer as fragments delicately recomposed or reworked by him. His works are intended to be a reminder of the passage of time, of our human weakness and fragility, but also the symbol of the resistance of beauty. Mitoraj said of his art: «I can say that for me Beauty is something that makes you dream, but it is much stronger than the dream. It is an ideal, a mirage, an enigma."

Let's kill the moonlight

Oil painting on canvas. On the back there is the signature and title. The intense artistic career of Menegon, a living artist of Venetian origins, is characterized by a total adherence to the musicality of poetic verses and by an extreme sensitivity to grasp the narrative spirit of some of the most significant contemporary literary episodes, proposing an effective synergy between different expressive fields. From the reading of various poets - Pound, Rimbaud, Eliot, Montale, Campana and Rilke, then the beloved Thomas Bernhard and Paul Celan - Menegon created a cycle of works for each of them. In this case, the title of the work refers to the futurist political manifesto of the same name by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published in 1909 in French and then in 1911 in Italian.

Untitled 1991

Mixed media on paper. Signed lower center. On the back the artist's stamp with the signature and date of the work. Caccioni, an artist who was born, trained and still lives in Bologna, is one of the protagonists of a generation that has now reached a definitive linguistic maturation and occupies an important space within the contemporary artistic panorama. His research mainly uses unusual materials such as acetates, PVC and, more recently, scenic backdrops from nineteenth-century theatrical works, on which he intervenes by painting forms taken from a personal memory and from suggestions coming from different cultures and historical periods. A recurring element in Luca Caccioni's work is writing, a self-significant sign that designs the work and is capable of narrating thoughts; working by superposition, the images are constructed by addition or subtraction of color on the various supports. Work in frame.

Untitled, 2004

Enamels on canvas. Signed and dated on the back. The pictorial work of the artist Roberto Coda Zabetta is the subject of some of the most complex and contradictory definitions of criticism: those who see pain, anger, fear, discomfort or those who see provocation, the dream, the unconscious. The artistic path of Roberto Coda Zabetta, who travels extensively around the world, is often characterized by the encounter with the culture and iconography of the countries he discovers, as well as by the sometimes dramatic events of which they are protagonists.

Imagology 2001

Oil and acrylic on canvas. Signature, date and title on the back. Concetto Pozzati was an eclectic artist: after his debut in the Informal climate, the artist reworked the influences of international Pop Art in a personal key, always remaining linked to a simplified, ironic figuration, with surrealist atmospheres. The work presented can be traced back to Pozzati's artistic period of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, characterized by a dense and fleshy painting that records the artist's interest in everyday and affectionate objects; belongs to the series entitled "Imagologia", groups of faces depicted on the canvas in overlapping and crossings. Of this series the artist said: "these heads fear painting because they often only collect the sign. The mystery of a head is always visible but... the enigma is always an unexpected relationship. The heads resist (for how much longer? ) to banality because the differences between them are extreme. Should we deal with the past? The past is easier to look at. The heads do not let life escape from their confines. The face does not detach itself from the torn relic. The heads they have ceased to be arrogant. The heads, these heads, enter my calendar. Heads with barbed wire: fence of heads. These heads could come out and come back at any moment. All these, so many heads, need a break if not a ping-pong for two. Continue to make sense of these heads as a dialogue of different masks that bounce in the circularity of time and in persistent memorization." Work in frame.

Passanti 1993

Mixed media on canvas. Signed lower right. On the back there is an art gallery label with the details of the work and the price; There is also a participation label for MiArt 2008. The work belongs to Franco Rognoni's last period, in which, having recovered from the existential crisis that had distracted him from easel painting, he resumed painting with forms inspired by a fantastic vision of life , supported by vivid color. The work is presented in a frame.

Regrets

Oil on the table. Signed lower left. Further signature and title on the back. Remo Squillantini, illustrator and painter, has created images capable of effectively conveying his vision of the world, a profoundly melancholic vision, which the artist is able to convey with sensitivity and ironic poetry. Squillantini proposes a bored humanity, devoid of values ​​and aspirations; his characters are anonymous extras who crowd the stage of everyday life, aged men and faded women, with no more dreams, desires, illusions. The work is presented in a frame.

Figures

Oil on the table. Signed lower right. On the back, further signature and registration number FSC67 in the general archive of the artist's works. The work is accompanied by photo authentication. Remo Squillantini, illustrator and painter, has created images capable of effectively conveying his vision of the world, a profoundly melancholic vision, which the artist is able to convey with sensitivity and ironic poetry. Squillantini proposes a bored humanity, devoid of values ​​and aspirations; his characters are anonymous extras who crowd the stage of everyday life, aged men and faded women, with no more dreams, desires, illusions. The work is presented in a frame.

Fruits in a Landscape

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. On the back there is a further signature, the title and the location of the work (Milan studio). Self-taught Milanese artist, Giovan Francesco Gonzaga declared "my true teacher is Nature" and, faithful to her, he dedicated himself mainly to scenes with horses (a passion inherited from his experience in the Savoy Cavalry during the war) to landscapes and still lifes , always depicted "en plein air". His canvases overflow with love and respect for horses and animals in general, nature is always admired as a source of authenticity, purity and freedom. Vittorio Sgarbi wrote about him: "The wisdom of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga lies in the drawing, which is strong and decisive..... The images vibrate with restlessness, in the sign of man's struggle against himself, in the hell of a a story that always seems to repeat the same drama. But if the preparatory drawing is admirable, this artist's color has a royalty and sensitivity that come from a musical perception of color, where the palette is expressed in sudden changes and rhythms buttons". The work is presented in a frame.

Untitled, 1958

Oil painting on canvas. Signature and date lower left. The work belongs to the very first production of Dadamaino, the Milanese artist considered a primary figure of avant-garde painting. In 1958 the artist, as she herself indicated in her biography published in the Catalog of the 6 Lombard painters, participated in the XII Michetti Prize in Francavilla al Mare, and in a collective exhibition in August in Albisola Marina at the Artists' Club in the town hall, club founded with the intention of allowing young emerging artists to express themselves and compare themselves (in the first edition of 1957 this exhibition brought together important names such as Fontana, Sassu, Reggiani; at the subsequent ones in '58 Osvaldo Pivetta, Mazzon, Walter Cuneo, Lam...)..). Participation in this event highlights Dadamaino's adherence to the artistic climate of the Ligurian town, an art center already very lively on an international level. Dadamaino's participation in the Albisola Club in 1958 is documented with works absolutely similar to the one presented here: they are still characterized by an informal naturalistic type of painting, with an abundance of color and pictorial pastes. Miklas Varga, professor of Art History at the Brera Academy, as well as an intellectual, poet and writer, wrote in the same year that Dadamaino "presents in his works of a very new trend a balance of expertly constructed volumes where the space-light relationships achieve their own autonomy , creating elements that can be converted into new visual sensations and finally a very modern dynamic". The work has slight color losses. It is presented in a frame.

Valtellina 2000

Mixed media on canvas. On the reverse there is signature, title, date and dedication to the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The work belongs to the pictorial phase of the painter Massimo Soldati, which evolved after 1985 and characterized by the search for new expressive techniques and the use of different materials, moving from formal figurative to informal figurative and conceptual abstract. The work is presented in a frame.

Jazza man -The drummer

Mixed media on cardboard, applied to canvas. Signed lower right. Giancarlo Cazzaniga, an exponent of Milanese Existential Realism, was mainly a landscape painter, but due to his passion for Jazz (he was a friend of Chet Baker) he also created some works on this theme. In particular the "Jazz man" series, dedicated to various instrumentalists of this musical genre. The work is presented in a frame.

Jazz man - The saxophonist

Mixed media on cardboard, applied to canvas. Signed lower right. Giancarlo Cazzaniga, an exponent of Milanese Existential Realism, was mainly a landscape painter, but due to his passion for Jazz (he was a friend of Chet Baker) he also created some works on this theme. In particular the "Jazz man" series, dedicated to various instrumentalists of this musical genre. The work is presented in a frame.

Untitled 1974

Tempera, white lead and conté pencil on watermarked paper. Accompanied by photo authentication from the Fausto Melotti Archive.

Glimpse of the Country with Figures

Oil on wooden panel. Signed lower left. Vittore Antonio Cargnel, father of Lucio Cargnel, was mainly a landscape painter, author in particular of evocative views of Treviso and exciting glimpses of Friuli, his homeland. He is considered the spokesperson of intimate landscape painting, for his ability to freeze landscapes in the immediacy of atmospheric changes, often on small panels, so as not to miss the moment of a particular luministic condition responsible for the impression aroused in the artist. In this part of the town, the luminous contrast stands out between the square still dominated by the gray rain, highlighted by the umbrellas of passers-by - figures that are only indistinct spots, neutral elements of the landscape - and the light which, cutting through the clouds, illuminates and colours. the top of the buildings. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.

Sketch of a Door 1982

Bronze, lost wax casting. Signed and dated below. On the back there is the artist's stamp, autographed, and a label with the data of the work, which was issued in only two copies. Silvana Maisao, a Genoese artist and pupil of Edoardo Alfieri, has created several sketches for doors.

Saint George 1992

Oil on panel. Signed bottom right. On the back, with Cyrillic characters, there is the title, the date and the location, Bergamo. The Lithuanian artist, who currently lives and works between Moscow, Italy and the United Kingdom, is considered one of the most important contemporary Russian artists. In his large production there are landscapes, still lifes, many portraits of famous people and his surreal compositions, an expression of his peculiar "dream vision" of reality. Even in this table, albeit in the style of traditional icons, the depiction of the famous St. George is proposed in a surreal key that reminds of De Chirico, in which the dragon is replaced by a goose, the Saint's head is an egg, in the outlines there are figures of sorceresses... a clearly unorthodox interpretation! The panel has a vertical slit. The piece is presented in a frame.

Bronze with Owl 1978

Bronze sculpture. Signature and date engraved on the left. The sculptural research of Piero Cattaneo, an artist from Bergamo also appreciated as an illustrator, started from naturalistic features, but his language gradually became more and more symbolic until arriving, at the end of the Sixties, at the original plastic solutions that best distinguish his physiognomy. The artist seeks an increasingly accentuated formal stylization, which vibrates with echoes of distant, archaic cultures to the point of reaching abstract results. Presented here is this owl, an animal of ancestral origins which is placed on a sort of stylized tree, made up of modern architectural elements mixed with naturalistic ones.

Plato and Aristotle

Mixed media on canvas. Signature, title, date and dedication on the reverse. Paolo Baratella, a recently deceased artist from Ferrara, developed his art by composing vast pictorial cycles inspired by contemporary subjects; we therefore have series of works by him gathered under significant titles. From the mid-1980s and into the 2000s, his scenographic apparatuses became more enriched with cultural, pictorial and literal iconographic references. In particular, Baratella pays greater attention to the iconography of art, philosophy and history. In this work the artist presents the portraits of the two great Greek philosophers (taken from their traditional classical depictions) and shades them in a frame of pink-blue colours. The two individual canvases are placed side by side inside a worked wooden frame, on whose two horizontal crosspieces the words "Timaeus" a work written by Plato, and "Ethics", a recurring theme of Aristotelian philosophy, are engraved.