"Untitled" by Mimmo Rotella.

Lithograph with collage applications
Dimensions: 100 x 90 cm
Print run: 23/100

Born in 1918, Rotella was an Italian artist, considered one of the stars of the art scene in the second half of the 20th century, linked to the Nouveau Réalisme and international Pop Art movements.

As a young man he frequented the Forma 1 avant-garde art group (members included Carla Accardi, Piero Dorazio and Achille Perilli) and following his figurative beginnings and early experimentation, he started to paint abstract geometric paintings that were inspired by the works of Vasilij Kandinskij and Piet Mondrian. In the 50s he travelled to the US where he found a personal style when he discovered billboard posters as a form of artistic expression, giving life to his décollages.  He would walk round the city tearing pieces of posters from the walls to glue them onto canvases and give them fresh interpretations. His works have appeard in many personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and internationally, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1957. 

His early décollages feature cinema and music stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley. In 1990 his works appeared in the "Art et Pub" exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and in the "High and Low" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1994 he was invited to the Guggenheim Museum in New York for the "The Italian Metamorphosis 1943-1968 " exhibition, then he returned to the Centre Pompidou in 1996 for "Face à l'Histoire".