Five masterpieces by Lucio Fontana from a single German collection are coming to auction at Sotheby’s in London, offering a rare and comprehensive overview of his spatial research.
How an exceptional collection of Lucio Fontana comes to auction
Five iconic works by Lucio Fontana, gathered in a single extraordinary collection formed in Germany with a deeply Italian perspective, are coming to auction with an overall estimate of up to 15 million pounds.
The works will be offered by Sotheby’s during the London auction week. The core allows for an organic retracing of the master’s evolution: from the early holes that challenge the pictorial plane to the cuts that transform the gesture into three-dimensional space.
Additionally, the journey includes interventions of strong plastic value, where the material is compressed, fractured, and shaped, pushing to the very limits of the support. This results in a rare synthesis of the artist’s entire experimental arc.
Why this selection is considered unrepeatable
“Encountering five works of this caliber, spanning every fundamental chapter of Fontana’s practice, within a single collection is something extraordinarily rare,” emphasizes Claudia Dwek, Chairman Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s.
Each work marks a different turning point in his investigation of space and gesture; together they offer the most complete portrait of an artist who redefined the possibilities of art in the postwar period.
That said, Dwek also highlights the overall quality of the collection: groups of this level “rarely resurface.” What makes the core even more significant is the dialogue between the works of Fontana, those of Alberto Giacometti, and Sam Francis.
These are three protagonists operating in different languages but sharing the desire to redefine form, perception, and the viewer’s experience. The fact that the collection has remained unseen for decades, and is now arriving in Italy before the sale, makes the moment particularly significant for collecting and for the history of postwar European art.
What are the five masterpieces of Fontana at auction
Among the lots stands out a Concetto Spaziale from 1960, rare and monumental, belonging to the revolutionary Oili series. The surface is traversed by constellations of holes circled in green. The estimate is 8.5–12 million pounds.
Alongside this painting are four other key moments of production. Moreover, all come from the same German collection, an element that reinforces the historical coherence of the group.
Teatrino, Natura, and the spatial cuts
Teatrino, from 1964, represents a fundamental stage of the eponymous series, where the canvas becomes a scenographic object suspended between painting, sculpture, and design. The valuation is between 350,000 and 450,000 pounds.
Natura (1959–60) is an example of great plastic strength from the famous eponymous series, where the material is worked in a direct, almost brutal way. Here the estimate ranges between 1.2 and 1.8 million pounds.
Among the cuts is Concetto Spaziale, Attesa, dated 1960, with an estimate between 1.5 and 2 million pounds, a complete expression of the transformation of the gesture into a slit that crosses the canvas.
A rare variant of the Pietre series, dating back to the mid-1950s, is represented by Concetto Spaziale from 1955 (estimate 700,000–1 million pounds), embellished with Murano glass fragments embedded directly into the surface.
These works are joined by Femme debout by Alberto Giacometti and an Untitled from 1962 by Sam Francis, completing the collection with two essential voices of the international avant-garde.
What role did Italy play in the postwar avant-garde
This sale is also an opportunity to highlight the central, and often underestimated, role of Italy in defining the postwar avant-garde beyond its national borders.
Most of the works were originally acquired through the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf, one of the most influential galleries of those years and a true crossroads of artistic exchanges.
Founded in 1957 by Alfred Schmela, the gallery quickly became a reference point for the most advanced experimentation. In the same year, it organized one of the first exhibitions of Yves Klein, then twenty-nine years old and still little known.
In this extremely fertile context, Schmela recognized in Fontana a visionary capable of breaking the very grammar of painting. From here began an intense collaboration between the late 1950s and early 1960s, founded on a deep intellectual affinity and a common propensity for risk.
How Fontana influenced the German scene
“The presence of Fontana in Germany around the 1960s,” observes Lisa Stevenson, International Specialist Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s London, “had a catalytic effect, offering artists a new way of thinking about space, material, and the physical experience of the work.”
This collection retraces precisely the moment when his ideas entered the German avant-garde in a formative phase, directly influencing the ZERO movement and contributing to the broader redefinition of artistic language in the postwar period.
Moreover, revisiting this core today means recovering a crucial chapter of European art history as it was being written, before its real scope was fully recognized by critics and the market.
Overall, the London auction at Sotheby’s not only offers masterpieces coveted by collectors but also recounts a season in which the formal innovation of Lucio Fontana helped to profoundly transform the international artistic landscape.
IMAGE: Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attesa (1960). Courtesy of Sotheby’s
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