Sotheby’s announced this morning that another important Lucio Fontana Concetto Spaziale (estimated at between £5-7 million) would be part of its London Contemporary art sale on February 5th. (In the current London preview, still on display at the company’s headquarters in New York, there is a full-size image of the work already on display.) The work is from Fontana’s Venezia cycle of 22 paintings and has remained out of sight for nearly 50 years, only gracing the catalogue raisonné as a black-and-white image.
This will be the first major test of Fontana’s market since the last cycle of sales in London but it is important to remember that during those sales, despite the central La Fine de Dio selling to one offer for £9 million, five out of the other six Fontanas sold for prices above the high estimate (with premium, of course.)