Umberto Boccioni Testa + luce + ambiente UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £9.7 MILLION
The title of this seminal Futurist work by Umberto Boccioni Testa + luce + ambiente translates as head + light + atmosphere. It was painted in 1912, the year the Futurists issued a call to arms for artists celebrating the modern world in a radical way. The short lived and highly influential movement demanded a break with the past centred on a desire to re-enter life through a focus on the speed, noise, machinery and violence of the new century.
This work centres the human figure in a direct shaft of light, resulting in the fusion of form and atmosphere. Paintings by Boccioni – a leading figure in the Italian Futurists alongside Severini, Balla and Marinetti – are very rare. This one was made just four years before his death at 33 in the First World War. It comes to auction for the first time at Sotheby‘s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in London on February 28 estimated at £5.5-7.5 million.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 6, 2018)