Salvatore Scarpitta

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
Galleria Notizie, Turin
Studio Durante, Rome
Galleria dell'Ariete, Milan 
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Los Angeles, Dwan Gallery, Salvatore Scarpitta, 1961
Dusseldorf, Galeria Schmela, Scarpitta, 1963
Milan, Galleria del'Ariete, Salvatore Scarpitta 1958-1963, 1964
Rome, Studio Durante, In superficie: un percorso astratto, 1989-90, no. 22, illustrated in colour
Rome, Studio Durante, Scarpitta. Opere 1955-1964, 1991, no. 9, illustrated
Rome, Studio Sotis, Voci. 1948 Roma 1960, 1998, n.p., illustrated in colour
Berlin, Kunstforum in der Grundkreditbank, L'avventura della materia. Der Italienische Weg von futurismus zum Laser, 2001
Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, Burri. Gli Artisti e la Materia 1945-2004, 2005-6, pp. 136-7, nos. 72-3, illustrated

'I simboli ottici crescono: Scarpitta', Metro, no. 3, Milan 1961, pp. 88-9, illustrated, and illustrated on the back cover
H. Janis and R. Blesh, Collage: Personalities, Concepts, Techniques, Philadelphia 1962, p. 263, no. 398, illustrated
Deutsche Zeitung, 21 November 1963
Arte Contemporanea, no. 4, Rome November 1967, illustrated 
'Craft Horizons', American Craft Council, August 1975, p. 27, illustrated
Luigi Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta: Catalogue Raisonné, Milan 2005, p. 72, illustrated in an installation, and p. 175, no. 258, illustrated, and p. 316. no. 258, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is deeper and richer in the original, and the illustration fails to convey the sculptural depth of the surface. Condition: This work is in very good and original condition. Close inspection reveals two very small and unobtrusive paint losses to the centre of the bottom right quadrant. There is a very thin, curving, and stable crack towards the top centre of the left edge, which appears to have been stabilised. No restoration is visible under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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Executed in 1960, Salvatore Scarpitta’s magnificent Out of Step hails from the pioneering series of 'torn' paintings initiated in 1957. Representing the climax of this technique, its dense, rigorous schema of competing and interlocking canvas bands testifies to a seminal art historical innovation. Redolent with a metallic pewter sheen that prompts an unprecedented play of light and texture, Out of Step represents one of the earliest prototypes for the dematerialised canvas. Rising to prominence in 1957 after two breakthrough solo exhibitions at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan and at the Galleria La Taratuga in Rome, in 1958 Scarpitta met gallerist Leo Castelli, later explaining: "with Leo a great friendship was born, and a great, immediate interest in my work.  Leo and I were like brothers" (the artist quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, Castello di Volpaia, Salvatore Scarpitta, 1992, p. 14).  

Out of Step transforms the stretcher into an armature around which swathes of monochrome torn canvas are rhythmically wrapped and woven.  Describing his own method, Scarpitta expressed a certain degree of removal from artistic control: "I didn't have a plan, I took the canvas, I cut it, reversed it and wrapped it around the frame" (the artist quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, Castello di Volpaia, Splendente, 1992, p. 17).  Such investigation of the two-dimensional canvas is frequently associated with Lucio Fontana, yet evidence suggests that Fontana's first Concetto Spaziale was immediately preceded by a visit to Scarpitta's studio in 1957. Piero Dorazio has written of this event: "when Fontana came to Rome I took him to Salvatore's studio... The next year I went to visit Fontana and his studio was full of cavases with the famous slashes, which could only have been suggested by the swathing bands of Scarpitta" (Piero Dorazio, 'For Salvatore Scarpitta' in: Exhibition Catalogue, Arbur, Centro d'Arte Arbur, Scarpitta, 2000, pp. 61-2). Scarpitta's involvement in the cultivation of a new artistic generation spearheaded by the Arte Povera movement can therefore not be over-emphasised.

As his typically literary or colloquial titles show, including Moby Dick, The Corn Queen, and The Flying Dutchman, Scarpitta was less interested in material tautologies and more concerned to foster dialogue with myth, tradition, and art history. The rich pewter subtlety of Out of Step, with its achromatic chiaroscuro, evokes the monumentality of Italian marble statuary or Renaissance drawing. Its modulations of light and dark recessive shadows are affined with Leonardo da Vinci’s obsessive studies of hanging drapery, meticulously hewn as landscapes of graded shades.  The Florentine tradition of Disegno, which posited the line as the basis of artistic form, appears here simplified and deconstructed, manifest through the dynamic linearity of Scarpitta’s intersecting bandages.

Scarpitta’s output equally resonated with its contemporary moment. Lorella Giudici has written: "[h]is work is the reflection of man's condition in our times, it is the testimony of the continuous constrictions to which he is subjected, the constant obstructions set in his path and against all of which he must find a way of struggling" (Lorella Giudici, 'Salvatore Scarpitta's Totem Art' in: Ibid., p. 13). Paralleling the reception of Burri's sutchered burlap Sacchi, the ‘torn’ works communicate an emotional scar tissue rendered by the Second World War.  It has thus been said that Scarpitta's bandaged canvases represent "a battle ground without the screaming voices" (Elena Pontiggia, 'Salvatore Scarpitta, The Uniqueness of Expression', in: Ibid., p. 85).

One of the most revolutionary works to emerge from Italian art during the early 1960s, Out of Step thus belongs to the highest tier of Scarpitta’s oeuvre. Unique for its conflation of sculpture and painting, and its dynamic, nearly Futurist fragmentation of the pictorial plane, the present work clearly evinces Scarpitta as a mind processing, transmuting, and reformulating Italian pre-war modernism for the new post-war era.