Robilant+Voena returns to Frieze Masters with a selection of masterpieces from the 15th to the 20th centuries, including Old Master paintings from the Italian, Spanish, British and French schools, and outstanding modern works by Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein and Pablo Picasso among others.
The earliest work in the presentation is an exceptional late Gothic altarpiece by Neri di Bicci (1419–1491) that will be shown for the first time in its 550-year history in the United Kingdom. The work, unrivalled in condition and ambition in Neri di Bicci’s oeuvre, shows the impeccable craftsmanship of the artist, the youngest of a Florentine dynasty of painters in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Other highlights of the historic pictures include a Caravaggesque still life by Antonio Ponce (1608–1662), a characteristically engaging allegorical painting by Michael Sweerts (1618–1664), and a lively bacchanalia by Alessandro Magnasco (1667–1749), executed in the early 1720s in Milan, when the artist was at the peak of his career. Three portraits of female figures by Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), George Romney (1734–1802) and French painter Adolphe Dechenaud (1868–1926) capture both the likenesses of their sitters and the essence of their era.
Juxtaposing the selection of Italian Old Masters are works by post-War pioneer Lucio Fontana, including a rare and monumental spatialist Soffitto (ceiling) design, composed of 12 polystyrene panels with tempera paint, and featuring the artist’s signature punctured holes and scratch marks. This seminal work was made for an exhibition at Villa Olmo in Lake Como in 1957 and has not shown publicly since then. The Soffitto has been in the same family since it was acquired directly from the artist in the year it was created, almost 70 years ago.
The presentation also includes a special focus on Fontana’s radical ceramics, which Robilant+Voena has championed for the past decade, alongside three of his paintings, including anunusually vibrant oil painting from the Pietre (Stones) group of works. This swirling blue and red painting finds visual resonance with Yves Klein’s RP2: Grenoble (1961), an exemplary work from the Relief Planétaire series made in response to Yuri Gagarin’s successful voyage into space in 1961. Pablo Picasso’s vivid Mousquetaire: buste (1967) is emblematic of one of the artist’s favourite subjects from his latter years, and shows his profound and almost obsessive admiration for Van Gogh.
