6 teatrini. 1968.
Portfolio comprising 6 relief cuts, for of each punched Schoeller-cardboard sheets layered, in red (1), black (2) and white (3), with title page and imprint, released in Edition Plus Suzanne L. Fischer, Baden-Baden 1968.
No longer recorded in Crispolti. All signed and numbered 24/75 on the reverse. cm ( in)Each 70 x 70 cm (27,5 x 27,5 in)
Lucio Fontana numbered the edition an signed it on 10 June 1968. The silkscreen colour was applied by Hans-Peter Haas, Stuttgart, who also printed the text. The punching and binding was made by Gramlich and Bichelmeier, Mannheim. In original case, each with transparent paper cover sheet. The complete set.

PROVENIENZ: Galerie Lauter, Mannheim.
Collection Prof. Robert Häusser.

LITERATUR: Harry Ruhé/Camillo Rigo, Lucio Fontana. graphics, multiples and more..., Amsterdam 2006, p. 157-162 (ill. in colours).

In 1905 the Argentino Lucio Fontana's family moved from Argentina to Milan, where Fontana studied engineering under Carlo Cattaneo from 1914. Returning to Argentina in 1922, he worked at first in his father's studio for sculpture before opening one of his own in 1924. By 1928 he was again in Milan, where he studied sculpture at the Accademia di Brera. In addition to figurative sculpture, he produced terracotta reliefs and painted plaster plaques from 1931, which show that he was moving towards abstraction. In 1935 Fontana had his first one-man show at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. From 1939 the artist was again in Argentina, where he co-founded the Altamira private academy in 1946, issuing with his students the 'Manifesto Blanco' calling for a synthesis of genres and the rejection of conventional materials. Once again in Milan, Fontana formulated his quest for a new spatial art in 1948 in the first 'Technical Manifesto of Spatialism' and founded the 'Movimento spaziale' group. In 1949 he realised his first 'Ambiente spaziale', a precursor of Environment, in a Milan gallery. That same year he produced his first perforated canvases, which, like all the works to follow, bore the title 'Concetto spaziale' (Spatial concept). In 1958 Fontana embarked on his celebrated gashed canvases, violent interventions with sharp knives in what were usually monochrome painted surfaces.

In 1964 Fontana developed the 'teatrini', cheerfully playful 'Little Theatres'. They respresent a special form in the artist’s concept of spatialism because they link the familiar 'buchi' [“Gashes”] principle with unusual figurative elements. The artist has set foreground stripes running round the canvas, whose silhouette is reminiscent of landscapes with hills, cliffs or trees, in front of sheets of cardboard perforated in a decorative handling of line. The separation of the two planes produces a peep-show effect with a closed section of space, which Fontana called “spazialismo realista”, a realistic spatial conception. The development of space travel in the 1960s, initiated in the first unmanned (Soviet Russian) Moon landing in 1966, was Fontana’s inspiration for this group of works. The artist died in 1968 before that first high point was followed up by six manned (US) Moon landings between 1969 and 1972.

Fontana's career closed with an impressive series of works the so-called 'La fine di dio'. Lucio Fontana died in Varese on 7 September 1968. [ME]

Zustand: In good condition. The white Teatrini with minor traces of rubbing on the margins. Portfolio with minor handling marks.