Giacomo Balla

Marlborough Gallery, Monaco
Galleria Fonte d'Abisso, Milan
Private Collection, Switzerland
An Important European Corporate Collection (acquired from the above in 2004 and sold: Sotheby's, London, February 4, 2015, lot 175)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Sao Paulo, Pinacoteca do Estado & Santiago de Chile, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Giacomo Balla 1894-1946: da Io Balla a Ball'io, 2000-01, no. 76, illustrated in color in the catalogue

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is not lined. The canvas is gently undulating and the edges are reinforced with tape. There is some very minor hairline shrinkage to the pigment at the edge of the yellow shape at lower right. The faintly visible curving lines in the blue, violet and green at upper center and upper right are original to the artist's drawing. Under UV light: some faint fluorescence to the edges of the forms and along the perimeter of the canvas that are original to the artist's process. A few scattered pindots of retouching in the black pigment at lower center and at upper center. Otherwise, fine.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

"Modern man is inclined towards color. The more or less Parisian fashions demonstrate it. Let us look at the hats, the umbrellas, our wives' clothes and the handkerchief and the tie we are wearing. And what has Futurist painting been from its beginning up until today if not a research of abstract chromatic decorativism?" (Giacomo Balla, quoted in Giovanni Lista, Balla, Modena, 1982, p. 89).

This remark of Balla’s, from an interview in 1920, reveals his thinking for the decade to come. By 1931 he would have parted with the Futurist movement altogether, pursuing instead an impressionist-figurative style until his death. The present work falls squarely in the middle of this final Futurist decade, when Balla’s style became increasingly geometric. Whilst seeming to fulfil the notion of abstract chromatic decorativism, this painting does in fact contain the barely legible letters of its title: buon appetito. Indeed, it is one of a number of works which begin with the title ‘motivo con parola…’ (motif with the word…). Others have as their subject: forse [maybe], luce [light], vetri [glass] and grazie [thank you]. It is unlikely that we would ever find these words—such is the distortion of their forms—were it not for the artist's guiding titles. The words are gifted to us, only for us to see how blinded we had been, but also how inconsequential the presence of the word buon appetito is to the overall composition.

Indeed, Balla’s interest in words as abstract devices is in fact not concerned with their painterly capability, but in the abstract concept of words themselves. As Maurizio Fagiolo observes: "Many of Balla’s masterpieces depict nothing but brightly colored words (significant as well, of course) or else striking, slogan-like phrases. Coins and banknotes are other forms of abstraction, but language is supreme. We all understand one another thanks to something abstract. This fact may be compared to the way a Persian carpet seems merely decorative in use, whereas in reality it contains invocations to Allah; a Japanese makemono may appear delightfully 'informel', but in fact it sings the praises of nature or love. In other words, to the ignorant (and the blind) everything appears as abstract" (quoted in Balla: The Futurist (exhibition catalogue), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1987, p. 130).