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Lot Essay
A dramatic, abstract combination of sacking, fabric and pigment, Sacco Nero Rosso is an exquisite example of Alberto Burri’s breakthrough series, the Sacchi: a rare and highly celebrated group of works that the artist began in 1950, which have now come to define his oeuvre. Over the course of his career, Burri harnessed natural and industrial materials and processes to create a new form of raw and immediate art. Burning, ripping, welding, or sewing his materials, he offered a new conception of art making, extending his practice far beyond the realm of the canvas, into the real world. Taking pieces of burlap sacking, a material endowed with a host of both powerful and poignant meanings, in Sacco Nero Rosso, Burri has created a work that is at once self-denying and autonomous, no longer a representation of reality, but an incarnation of life. Searing portions of crimson radiate against the planes of velvety black and patches of worn, stitched burlap, this trio of colour invoking a sense of Baroque grandeur and pictorial drama that often characterises the greatest of these groundbreaking Sacchi. Initially owned by the Galleria L’Obelisco, one of the foremost galleries in Rome following the Second World War and an important centre for the avant-garde at this time, Sacco Nero Rosso was subsequently in the collection of the Galerie Anne Abels in Cologne, before it was acquired by the present owner in 1960. Remaining in this same collection for over half a century, this work has never before been seen at auction, a rare and striking example of this seminal series.
With the Sacchi, Burri took pieces of burlap sacking, a prevalent material in post-war Italy and tore, ripped, sewed and stuck these pieces together, creating works of art which were based solely on the physical properties of the materials and their construction. ‘I could achieve that same shade of brown’, Burri explained, ‘but it wouldn’t be the same because it wouldn’t contain everything I want it to contain. It has to comply as a surface, as a material and idea, which would be impossible using paint’ (Burri, quoted in Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, Alberto Burri, Catalogo Generale, Città di Castello, 2015, p. 37). In Sacco Nero Rosso, Burri has combined these pieces of worn, stretched, and in some places, ripped, burlap pieces and integrated them into a collage-like composition consisting of red and black pigment, as well as other pieces of fabric. While the medium of collage had a long tradition within 20th Century art, ranging from the Cubists’ radical papier-collés to Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbilder, here Burri took these innovative developments a step further to create a new form of material realism that perfectly beft the post-war era. As James Johnson Sweeney wrote, ‘Here we have the true metaphor in picture making: the relation of an ephemeral contemporary visual experience to a universal concept. Some torn bagging, bits of thread, paper and paint seen with an intensity of imagination and composed with such an efectiveness of organisation as to make the dead material come alive and pulse as human fesh’ (J.J. Sweeney, Burri, exh. cat., Rome,
1963, p. 6).
The intimate scale of Sacco Nero Rosso also emphasises one of the most important aspects of Burri’s practice: his innate understanding of compositional structure, one of the most essential components of picture making. While Burri created work that served as the very antithesis of traditional painting, he by no means devolved himself nor denied its history. Indeed, throughout his career, Burri strove above all for a sense of compositional harmony in his material constructions, declaring that this was the most important aspect of his work. ‘Painting should be decorative’, he explained, ‘in other words it should follow the rules of composition and proportion… Balance of the shapes placed in the space… at least this… balance that can be pulled terribly one way or the other, but it is always in balance…’ (Burri, quoted in Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, op. cit., p. 34). Never constructed haphazardly nor arbitrarily, the Sacchi were created over long spans of time, each piece of burlap, every tear, stitch or stroke of paint added with the upmost consideration. This instinctive sense of compositional and spatial balance is perfectly exemplified in the present work, its size demonstrating Burri’s instinctive ability at combining and contrasting raw materials to create a work of aesthetic beauty.
With the Sacchi, Burri took pieces of burlap sacking, a prevalent material in post-war Italy and tore, ripped, sewed and stuck these pieces together, creating works of art which were based solely on the physical properties of the materials and their construction. ‘I could achieve that same shade of brown’, Burri explained, ‘but it wouldn’t be the same because it wouldn’t contain everything I want it to contain. It has to comply as a surface, as a material and idea, which would be impossible using paint’ (Burri, quoted in Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, Alberto Burri, Catalogo Generale, Città di Castello, 2015, p. 37). In Sacco Nero Rosso, Burri has combined these pieces of worn, stretched, and in some places, ripped, burlap pieces and integrated them into a collage-like composition consisting of red and black pigment, as well as other pieces of fabric. While the medium of collage had a long tradition within 20th Century art, ranging from the Cubists’ radical papier-collés to Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbilder, here Burri took these innovative developments a step further to create a new form of material realism that perfectly beft the post-war era. As James Johnson Sweeney wrote, ‘Here we have the true metaphor in picture making: the relation of an ephemeral contemporary visual experience to a universal concept. Some torn bagging, bits of thread, paper and paint seen with an intensity of imagination and composed with such an efectiveness of organisation as to make the dead material come alive and pulse as human fesh’ (J.J. Sweeney, Burri, exh. cat., Rome,
1963, p. 6).
The intimate scale of Sacco Nero Rosso also emphasises one of the most important aspects of Burri’s practice: his innate understanding of compositional structure, one of the most essential components of picture making. While Burri created work that served as the very antithesis of traditional painting, he by no means devolved himself nor denied its history. Indeed, throughout his career, Burri strove above all for a sense of compositional harmony in his material constructions, declaring that this was the most important aspect of his work. ‘Painting should be decorative’, he explained, ‘in other words it should follow the rules of composition and proportion… Balance of the shapes placed in the space… at least this… balance that can be pulled terribly one way or the other, but it is always in balance…’ (Burri, quoted in Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, op. cit., p. 34). Never constructed haphazardly nor arbitrarily, the Sacchi were created over long spans of time, each piece of burlap, every tear, stitch or stroke of paint added with the upmost consideration. This instinctive sense of compositional and spatial balance is perfectly exemplified in the present work, its size demonstrating Burri’s instinctive ability at combining and contrasting raw materials to create a work of aesthetic beauty.