$28,000
Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000
18 Works from the Bachman Collection
Auction: June 4, 2018 1:00:00 PM EDT
Signed and dated 1983 verso, oil on burlap with mixed media collaged elements.
39 1/4 x 39 1/4 in. (99.7 x 99.7cm)
dimensions not including frame.
Provenance: Private Collection, Germany.
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (acquired directly from the above in 1985).
The Estate of Lee & Gilbert Bachman, Atlanta, Georgia & Boca Raton, Florida (acquired directly from the above in 1986).
NOTE:
This lot is accompanied by a photocopy of a bill of sale from Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Illinois. A certificate of authenticity may be purchased directly from the Studio Paladino by the successful bidder.
Shown here as framed (not the artist's frame).
Contemporary European artist Mimmo Paladino has worked throughout his career in various media including painting, sculpture, and printmaking. His works indirectly recall numerous influences, including early Christian art and religious themes, as well as mythology, alchemy, ancient art and Expressionism. He first visited the Venice Biennale in 1964 while still a student and had his first solo exhibition in Naples in 1968. Through the 1970s, having been exposed to Pop and Conceptual Art, he dabbled in Conceptual works, artistic collaborations, and photography, but always with the intent of returning to painting. In 1980 he had his first solo exhibition in New York, as well as a showcase at the Venice Biennale, and as a result, international interest in his work grew rapidly. Paladino was a central figure in the development of the Transavantgarde movement, which was the Italian form of Neo-Expressionism. The artist has been credited with aiding in the revival of Milanese painting in the late 1980s.
From the early 1980s onwards, Paladino began to move from the purely pictorial into sculpture and engraving. Indeed, the present work of 1983 signals the artist's transition from two-dimensional artwork into sculpture as it includes a three-dimensional shaped form collaged onto a painted burlap surface. Here, Paladino depicts stylized figures, including one of a woman wearing a blue headscarf and another who is partially obscured behind a dark mask. The influences of Primitivism and Tribal art, as well as the aforementioned religious inspiration, are all visible within the composition. The bright yellow background contrasts sharply against the figures creating a visually dynamic work that is both mysterious and appealing.