Thinking Italian Art and Design Evening Sale

Christie’s is delighted to present Thinking Italian Art and Design, a new sale concept coinciding with the 20th anniversary of our first ever Italian Sale. Building on the pioneering success of this platform, the auction will draw together the finest examples from these two intimately connected categories, to showcase the rich and beautiful dialogues that flourished within 20th-century Italian visual culture. The post-war period of reconstruction and regeneration was accompanied by a burst of intense creative energy, with artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Lucio Fontana and Pino Pascali, along with designers Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino and Carlo Scarpa, coming to dominate the European avant-garde, each forging entirely new aesthetics and practices that would exert a powerful influence over art and design in the decades that followed. 

From the pioneering Futurists to the classicism of the Novecento and the optimistic experimentation of the post-war period up to Arte Povera, the auction will celebrate the diversity of this extraordinary epoch, revealing the eclecticism, rigour and creativity that unites Italian design with the wider artistic avant-garde.

Please contact Client Services at bidsuk@christies.com if you wish to attend the auction in person. Due to limited capacity in the sale room, seating will need to be reserved in advance.

Or join us virtually at approximately 8pm BST / 9pm CEST on Thursday, 22 October to watch our Thinking Italian Art and Design Art Evening Sale and experience the thrill of our new hybrid-style live auction.  Visit the christies.com homepage or check back here on Thursday, 22 October to watch the live stream event. Thinking Italian Art and Design will follow immediately after the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale.