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While most Italian and International auction houses are still waiting to attack the new year’s market and are planning new events, Meeting Art in Vercelli has a very challenging January and is starting 2010 with a rich calendar of auctions.
Between 2nd and 10th January, the Italian auction house held five sessions dedicated to modern and contemporary art. In that event, although there were not any sensational hammer prices (lots did not exceed 6,000 euros), the auction houses held out well in the holidays considering that many collectors were on vacation: 94.71% of the lots were sold totalling 392,950 euros. An excellent result for the modern and contemporary sector, which confirms its determination to get over the crisis.
Now Meeting Art is attacking the market again with four sessions, also dedicated to modern and contemporary art, which will take place on 23rd, 24th, 30th and 31st January. Each session has its strong pieces, but for now the highest estimate (125,000-140,000 euros) is held by a work by Salvatore Scarpitta, Had Carrier, for which art lovers will have to wait until the third auction session. However, those who are more anxious to get important pieces, will find in the preceding appointments great names of the Italian and international artistic scene: Arman, Agam, Afro, Appel, Bonalumi, Crippa, Christo, Dorazio, Klein, Nigro, Adami, Picasso and Tozzi, Penk.
In the first session, two works will be presented with the same estimate (105,000-120,000 euros), a Nocturne by Afro – mixed technique on paper – and a triptych of monochromes by Yves Klein.
Essential lines and ancestral red and blue shapes are alternated rhythmically in the acrylic on canvas Standarl Scorpion by Penk A.R., auctioned with an estimate of 45,000-50,000 euros. There is also rhythm in Structure Couleurs (estimate 72,000-80,000) by the Israeli Yaacov Agam: oil-painted aluminium applied on panel, a play of intervals and neat lines which generates an optical effect.
In the second session, needless to say that – although with a lower estimate than other pieces – Pablo Picasso is the name which stirs particular attention. Fillette, a human silhouette of hand-cut and pencil-drawn cardboard, is a unique piece by the Spanish genius, which comes from the collection of his friend and sculptor Mary Callery. The auction base price is 18,000 euros for a work that has an estimated value of 28,000-30,000 euros.
Higher up, in the Olympus of estimates in this event, there is a work by Mario Tozzi, Profilo e geometrie, dated 1972, which to reach an estimate of 90,000-100,000 euros starts from an auction base of 50,000.
As preannounced, the third appointment will be dominated by Scarpitta’s work, though it will not be the only pearl of the day. Indeed, there is an outstanding Rosso by Bonalumi (estimate 54,000-60,000 euros), Vibrazioni Simultanee by Mario Nigro (estimate 54,000-60,000 euros), Unito by Piero Dorazio (72,000-80,000 euros), L’Horizon Ardent (105,000-120,000) and Figure by Karel Appel (72,000-80,000 euros). The latter, in particular, is a canvas of great impact, in spite of its medium-small size: what is striking is its three-dimensional power, given by the materic tangle of colours used by the artist, a mellow clot of signs which bursts out from the surface.
The auction ends on a high note with an all Italian triad: Guttuso, De Chrico and Donzelli. A beautiful Cavallo nel paesaggio by De Chirico is available with an estimate of 90,000-100,000 euros, starting from an auction base of 50,000. Particular, lean and sharp is Guttuso’s pastel entitled Due zappatori, on the market with an estimate of 36,000-40,000 euros, while an exuberant triptych by Bruno Donzelli earns the catalogue cover page and is proposed at auction with an estimate between 27,000 and 30,000 euros. The lively work by the Neapolitan artist, to whom Gillo Dorfless dedicated an anthological exhibition in 2007, still reveals a clearly ironic language and a playful relation with last century’s art.
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