Salvatore Scarpitta

Property from the Collection of Abby and B.H. Friedman, New York
Gift of the above to the present owner

Milan, Galleria dell'Ariete, Scarpitta: 1958-1963, October - November 1964, cat. no. 9 (exhibited prior to the artist's addition of the exterior armature) 

Luigi Sansone, Salvatore Scarpitta: Catalogue Raisonné, Milan, 2005, cat. no. 301, p. 183, illustrated

This work is in excellent condition overall. The straps and bandages are secured to a wooden stretcher that is mounted on an additional bandaged wood armature. All of the bandaged elements are well intact; there is no evidence of stress or cracking. The surface is clean. The variation to the surface texture and pigment are inherent to the artist's working method and choice of medium. There are artist's drilled holes in the left and right sides of the outer armature near the top.
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.
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“Canvas: twisted, stretched, slashed, ripped, taut as the hood on an ancient touring car, as the cover of a prairie schooner, swollen as a sail flapping in the wind, rigid as a bandage, cheerful as a tablecloth stained during a convivial feast…this alpha and omega of the post-medieval painter and of the modern artist is here in Scarpitta elevated to the only material with which he works.” (Cesare Vivaldi, “Salvatore Scarpitta,” Quaderni di Arte Attuale, Rome, 1959)

Born in New York and raised in Hollywood, Salvatore Scarpitta began his career as an artist in Rome after serving in the Navy in the Second World War. In 1957 Scarpitta's artistic breakthrough followed two critically acclaimed solo shows at Galleria del Naviglio in Milan and at Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome; it was here that the first 'torn' paintings were exhibited. 

In 1958 an introduction by his friend, artist Piero Dorazio, to gallerist Leo Castelli proved invaluable for Scarpitta's career, prompting the artist's return to New York in the same year.  He was quickly recruited into Castelli's fold and, following exhibitions of works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, had his first solo show Extramurals in January 1959. Willem de Kooning bought one of the works on display, and through Castelli Scarpitta also met Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and others from the New York avant-garde crowd. According to Scarpitta: "with Leo a great friendship was born, and a great, immediate interest in my work.  Leo and I were like brothers." (Exh. Cat., Castello di Volpaia, Salvatore Scarpitta, 1992, p. 14)

Though captivated and stimulated by the New York art scene, Scarpitta’s output strongly parallels the work of his Italian contemporaries Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana. Allied with the groundbreaking works produced by these artists, Halter 2 is a superlative example of one of the most innovative deviants to painterly convention engendered by the first generation of artists to emerge out of the postwar political climate in Europe. The dark ochre bands used in Halter 2 are bound, stretched and pulled away from one another by vertically coiled charcoal straps, tethered in perpetual restraint. The present work exhibits a formal component that marks a revolutionary progression in Scarpitta’s practice that first appeared in his work in 1960 and continued throughout the artist’s oeuvre. Still tightly bound and wrapped as the works of the late 50s, Scarpitta investigates beyond the two dimensional picture plane introducing, as described by Gillo Dorfles, a “gaping space between the elements of the composition, the void among the whole, the pause in the story, the interval between the notes. The bandages of cloth, strips of leather, the tie-straps […] have locked up in their grip the elements of the structure and revealed the openings through which, gaping, looms the freed space.” (in Exh. Cat., Milan, Galleria dell’Ariete, Scarpitta: 1958-1963, October - November 1964) The wound-like openings echo the recent memory of war, communicating pain, torture, anxiety, but also healing and rebirth. In creating these new works, Scarpitta utilizes alternative mediums and methods by implementing strips of elastic soaked in glue. These strips, once flexible and pliable, are now rigidly taut and stiffly held into place. 

A dear friend and steadfast supporter of Scarpitta’s practice and development, writer and critic B.H. Friedman and his wife Abby amassed an unparalleled collection comprised of the several of the artist’s most significant works, including the present example, Halter 2, as well as Moby Dick (1958) and Racer’s Pillow (1963) (fig. 1), both of which are a bequest to the collection of the Whitney Museum of America Art.  Attempting to appropriately interpret these wrapped constructions over stretchers, B.H. Friedman questions, “What else can we call them? Sculptural paintings? Painterly sculptures? Painting containing sculpture? Sculpture containing painting? Vehicles of painting and sculpture? What? There is, thanks to him, no easy label… Consistently, every work is open, the carrier and the carried, through everything there is a flow of fresh air and energy” (“Salvatore Scarpitta: an Aesthetic History,” in Salvatore Scarpitta, Exh. Cat., Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, 1977, p. 12).  The sense of energy in Scarpitta’s output that fascinated Friedman in the early 60s still emanates powerfully across each work’s bandaged surface to viewers today.  Unique for his synthesis of sculpture and painting, and his dynamic fragmentation of the pictorial plane propelled by a visceral object-forward presence, Halter 2 argues for Scarpitta’s position as one of the most influential artists of both the Italian and American post-war period.