Mimmo Rotella *
(Catanzaro 1918–2006 Milan)
Tra cinema e pubblicità, 1962, signed and dated; titled and dated on the reverse, décollage on canvas, posters, glue, 81 x 116 cm
Provenance:
Galleria Il Centro, Naples (label on the reverse)
Private Collection (acquired from the above in the 1970s)
Sale, Sotheby’s Milan: 18 April 2018, lot 39
European Private Collection (acquired from the above by the present owner)

Exhibited:
Saint Etienne, Beautés volées - Dessous d’affiches, affiches lacérées, décollages de Dufrêne, Hains, Rotella, Villeglé, Musée d’Art et d’Industrie, 4 June - 29 July 1976, exh. cat. p. 34, no. 28 with ill.

Literature:
G. Celant (ed.), Mimmo Rotella, Catalogo Ragionato, Volume Secondo 1962 - 1973, Tom. III, Skira, Milan 2020, p. 1071, no. 1962 135 with ill.

When I first started ripping posters off the walls in the street and glueing them to canvas, the results had a material-abstract feel. Then the figure slowly reappeared: images from advertising, from cinema fascinated me. I thought, it looks good, l'll go and exhibit it. It could be a film star but it could also be a piece of cheese, like the one that takes up almost the entire surface of one of my paintings bought from Georges Pompidou's wife. Underpinning Nouveau Réalisme and my work is the absolute act of taking ownership of the image.
Mimmo Rotella

“I am just a narrator who comments on the history of painting in various ways, using new materials: it is like a game that consists of changing the code and the key to the artwork… Many of my colours, materials and textures are the product of relived experiences of other masters.
My painting involved much reflection.”
Manolo Valdés, quoted in C. de Albornoz, ‘Manolo Valdés’,
in Abc, 26 June 2005