As prices for Italian post-war art continue to break records in London, Tornabuoni Art is due to open a gallery in the UK capital in October, a week before the Italian auctions begin. “London was an obvious choice for our expansion, as it has become a real focal point for the Italian art market,” says Ursula Casamonti, the director of the new gallery.
The first exhibition (8 October-5 December) will feature more than 40 works by Lucio Fontana, including a rare black velvet work on wood from 1956 and the popular museum exhibit, L’Inferno, also from 1956. It will be the Italian conceptualist’s first solo show in London for more than a decade
Works by Fontana have sharply risen in value over the past few years. His auction record stands at €19m, achieved in November 2013 for one of his Concetto Spaziale paintings. The artist’s gallery prices have increased accordingly. Several works in Fontana’s forthcoming London exhibition are priced around the €5m mark.
Roberto Casamonti established Tornabuoni Art in Florence in 1981 and has gone on to open galleries in Milan, Portofino, Fort dei Marmi and Paris. Casamonti’s daughter, Ursula, will run the Mayfair gallery. Ursula’s brother, Marco Casamonti, is designing the space.
Solo exhibitions by Alighiero Boetti, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Francesca Pasquali and Luca Pignatelli are also being organised for the new London gallery. Pignatelli, who first trained as an architect, has never had a show in London before. A group show of Italian masters from the 1950s and 1960s is also in the pipeline.
