Mimmo Rotella (Italian, 1918-2006)
Untitled

signed 'Rotella' (lower right)
collage
Executed in 1960

Unframed: 19.4 x 18.2 cm. (7 5/8 x 7 1/8 in.) Framed: 37 x 36 cm. (14 1/2 x 14 1/4 in.)

The artist, early 1960s, from whom gifted to Private Collection, U.K
Their sale; Christie’s, London, 17 October 1991, lot 69
Private Collection, U.K., circa 2007, from whom gifted to the present owner

Domenico “Mimmo” Rotella was born in Catanzaro in 1918. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples before moving to Rome in 1945. In 1951, Rotella won a Fulbright Foundation Scholarship, which saw him travel to the United States. This undoubtedly influenced his artistic practice. During his time in America, he met emerging and established giants of the American post-war art scene, including Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly. He absorbed the explosive energy of American consumerism, advertising, and pop culture.

By 1953, having moved back to Rome, Rotella created his first décollage; this collection of works was composed of pieces from advertisement posters that he had ripped off the walls. They mirrored the gritty, informal textures of the war-torn urban landscape. They looked raw, chaotic, and heavily textured, focusing on the materiality of torn paper and peeling glue. This early phase heavily echoed the energetic, non-figurative aesthetics of American Abstract Expressionism (like the works of Pollock or the gritty textures of Rauschenberg's early combines).

This Untitled work, executed in 1960, depicts both the continuity and change that Rotella shared with his American counterparts who were also working in the '50s and '60s. Both Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism were inspirations; while Pop Art ultimately had far more influence on his oeuvre, Abstract Expressionism gave him his method, and Pop Art gave him his subject matter.

This work is critical to this period, as it almost occupies the space between the two movements. Rotella fully adopted the process of physically making works, tearing posters and compiling his décollages. However, the elements of pop lettering and the use of colour are also apparent in this work. Rotella’s influence is most acutely felt in how contemporary art interacts with the public sphere. He was among the first to recognise that the billboards and cinema posters blanketing the city were not just advertisements, but the new frescoes of the modern age. His work laid the crucial groundwork for subsequent generations of street artists, collage makers, and mixed-media creators who view the city itself as both a canvas and a quarry for raw materials. By elevating the torn, weathered, and discarded elements of urban life, he challenged traditional aesthetic hierarchies and democratised the materials of art-making.