This week, great art has landed on Catawiki! Until Sunday 16th July, you can find artworks by Mimmo Rotella, an Italian artist considered to be one of the leading artistic figures of the second half of 20th century. Read our story to find out more about this pioneer.
Mimmo Rotella was born in Catanzaro in 1918. He started his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts) in Naples. After a stay in the USA (1952-53), and a series of experiments ranging from those in a neoplastic style to phonetic poetry experiences, he created his first series of ‘décollages’ (torn posters) in Rome in 1954. In 1961 he participated in events of the Nouveaux réalistes group and in 1965 he settled in Paris. Here, for about a decade, he experimented with mechanical processes of image reproduction, contributing to the definition of Mec-Art.
In Italy from 1980, Rotella went back to painting, creating a series of great acrylics on the theme of movies as well as going back to and reworking his décollages, the style of works of which he is famous for. As the word itself says, this technique is the opposite of a collage. Pieces of posters are ‘torn off’ and applied (glued) onto another media.
In our auction, you will find artworks by this great artist, who made Italy famous all over the world!