Newly discovered work by Paolo Scheggi up for Auction

A newly discovered work from the early 1960s by the Italian avant garde artist Paolo Scheggi (1940-71) has found its way to Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art and will be auctioned off in September 2016. The hitherto unknown work has been in a private Danish collection, and prior to the sale it has recently been registered with the Associazione Paolo Scheggi in Milan.

In the early 1960s a fertile environment and art scene arose in Denmark around the most experimental art, which sought to break with the conventional notions of what an 'art object' could be. Because of this interest, several works by the artists of "Group Zero" ended up in Danish private collections and in the Danish art museums.

The art museum HEART in Herning owns three works by Paolo Scheggi for instance, just as the museum owns the world's largest public collection of Piero Manzoni's works. Piero Manzoni helped facilitate an invitation to his colleague Enrico Castellani (b. Italy 1930) in 1961-1962 to come to Herning. The invitation included an assignment to draft the design of a service station for Texaco, and just as with Manzoni, Castellani created a series of his most important and most groundbreaking works in Denmark. Several of the period's most significant Italian artists – Lucio Fontana (Argentina/Italy 1899-1968), Paolo Scheggi (Italy 1940-1971) and Turi Simeti (b. Italy 1929) – were exhibited in Copenhagen during the mid-1960s.

Italian Avant-Garde

Paolo Scheggi was an Italian artist and member of the avant-garde “Group Zero”. Known for his inventive monochromatic canvases, Scheggi’s abstractions create shallow spaces and light by superimposing surfaces and overlapping elliptical holes in a series called Intersuperfici and Strutture Modulari. Born in 1940 in Florence, Scheggi went on to study in London and later moved to Milan. The formal and conceptual aspects of his work allied him with the ZERO movement with artists such as Lucio Fontana, whose work with puncturing the picture plane and interest in exploring paintings as objects was similar to Scheggi’s. Despite a short life, Sheggi’s work was widely exhibited, including at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966. In 1968 he began his investigation of the theatre, expanding his work beyond the traditional gallery space into the city. Scheggi died in 1971 in Rome, Italy at the age of 31.

Auction highlights

• Paolo Scheggi: "Intersuperficie curva dal rosso", 1962-63. Signed and titled on the back. Red acrylic on canvas in three layers. 70 x 50 x 5.5 cm. The work is registered with the Associazione Paolo Scheggi with number APSM154 / 0001. Estimate: DKK 2-2.5 million
• Carlos Cruz-Diez: "Physichromie No. 393", Paris, Fev. 1968. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Mixed media relief (acrylic, plastic, wood). 61 x 62 cm. Estimate: DKK 400,000-600,000 / € 54,000-80,000.
• Daniel Spoerri: "La douche III. Détrompe l'oeil", Næstved, Stubbekøbing, Denmark, August 1976. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Board 130 x 70 cm. Estimate: DKK 100,000 / € 13,500.
• Bruno Gambone: Object, 1970. Signed and dated on the reverse. Relief. Oil on canvas. 40 x 40 x 8 cm. Estimate: DKK 25,000-30,000 / € 3,350-4,050.
• Toni Costa: "Dinamica Visuale", Padova 1967. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Relief of white PVC laid down on painted wood. 27 x 37 cm. Estimate: DKK 60,000-75,000 / 8,000-10,000.

Preview & Auction

Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers, Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen

Preview: 15-19 September

Auction: 20-29 September

Some of the auction highlights will be exhibited at Drouot in Paris from 12-13 September.