
Untitled
This untitled canvas by Mario Schifano presents a landscape in full expressive dissolution, where recognizable elements of sky, cloud, and earth are simultaneously invoked and destabilized through gestural mark-making of considerable energy and speed. Schifano layers enamel and acrylic to create a surface that pulses with chromatic tension, the deep navy of a storm-laden sky pressing down against a swirling field of white and luminous blue that suggests wind-driven clouds or cresting waves. Below, a vibrant green ground anchors the composition while bold arcing lines in red, blue, and black spiral upward and outward, tracing movements that feel both botanical and atmospheric, as though the landscape itself is caught mid-transformation. The work is characteristic of Schifano's mature practice from the 1980s and into the 1990s, a period in which the artist moved away from the Pop-inflected appropriations of his earlier career and increasingly engaged with nature as a subject filtered through pure painterly instinct. The 80 by 120 centimeter format gives the composition room to breathe without sacrificing the concentrated intensity that defines his smaller works on paper. Schifano was known for working quickly and intuitively, and this canvas bears evidence of that process in its overlapping passages, the visible reworking of certain areas, and the way lines accumulate into rhythmic, almost calligraphic structures that never quite resolve into description. The result is a painting that hovers productively between abstraction and landscape, between recording and invention. For collectors, this work represents a strong and accessible entry point into a body of work that remains underappreciated relative to Schifano's historical importance as one of the defining figures of postwar Italian art. Closely associated with the Roman avant-garde scene and exhibited internationally throughout his career, Schifano produced a substantial yet uneven body of work, making examples of this clarity and compositional ambition genuinely desirable. The condition of the canvas is consistent with works of this period and medium, and the physical presence of the piece, with its layered impasto passages and sweeping linear gestures, rewards close inspection as much as it commands attention from across a room.
- Medium
- Enamel and acrylic on canvas
🔨 Auction Lot
Martini Studio d'Arte: Modern And Contemporary Art
June 10, 2026
Estimate: €10,000 to €15,000
Lot 49
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