LUCIO FONTANA

The catalogue raisonné of the works on paper by Lucio Fontana (Rosario de Santa Fé, 1899 - Varese, 1968) represents the most complete and advanced existing publication on this fundamental aspect of the work of the artist, one of the greatest protagonists of the artistic events of the 20th century.

Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, chronologically ordered and subdivided according to the diversified operative typologies found within the artist's extremely wide-ranging creative activity, it constitutes a new, privileged and largely unpublished point of view from which to explore the entire development of Fontana's work in the round. Experimentation on paper is in fact Fontana's chosen place in which to measure the richness and novelty of his inspiration. Through his works on paper the artist continually verifies his intuitions, in the germinal and then decisive phase of his formal and conceptual discoveries.

Fruit of the monumental work of archiving and documentation of authenticity of the Lucio Fontana Foundation, the catalogue raisonné, realized in collaboration with Nini Ardemagni Laurini and Silvia Ardemagni, retraces four decades of the artist's creative activity, interweaving in parallel his research paths. From the surprising corpus of figural elaborations, already coexisting in the 30's with the abstract research, it comes to the original invention of the "spatial" art, which leads to the birth and development of his very personal "holes", "environments", "cuts". The study also presents the first extensive and unpublished documentation regarding the dialogue with architecture, decoration, up to the experimentation of techniques and unusual materials.

Divided into three volumes, introduced by a preface by Enrico Crispolti, already curator of the catalogue raisonné of sculptures, paintings, and settings by the artist, the volume presents an essay by Luca Massimo Barbero, which, following years of study, reorganization and relocation of the works on paper, constitutes the first scientific contribution extended to its systematic historicization, accompanied by over 100 color images. Overall, the catalogue includes more than 5,000 works created between 1928 and 1968, accompanied by files offering a bibliographical and exhibition analysis, making it an essential and up-to-date tool for scholars, collectors, museum operators and art dealers to get to know Fontana's work.