Art Market Monitor

The Financial Times scouts out the Continental art market pointing to the expansion of Tornabuoni Gallery into Paris with the largest show of Lucio Fontana works in decades:

Sixty works by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Italy’s most sought-after contemporary artist as founder of the post-war Spatialism movement, will go on show in a new gallery opening in Paris’s exclusive Avenue Matignon. Four dozen are for sale.

Michele Casamonti, director of Florence’s Tornabuoni gallery who is expanding into Paris, says the time is right to test the waters with the world’s biggest exhibition of Fontana for over 20 years. He admits he would not have dared a year ago after the “crac” of Lehman Brothers.

“This is a thermometer of the crisis,” he told the FT in Rome. “Now we are the surfer catching the wave early, at the right time. This is a good moment for collectors to make acquisitions. It could be too late to buy these in one or two years.”

Paris Exhibition Tests Strength of Art Market (Financial Times)

Also of Interest:

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• Anatomy of a Rediscovered Fontana
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• The Lehman and Neuberger Berman Collections
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• London, Art Entrepôt
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• Gearing Up for London Already
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