MATERIALS: Tempera, paper and acetate on wood
DIMENSIONS: 59 × 78 cm
INSCRIPTIONS: Dated and titled on a typewritten label attached to the verso: ‘Prima ideazione 1957 / Bozzetto de L’Isola di Fabio Mauri. 1960 / Prima rappresentazione 1964, Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto / Secondo allestimento 1966, Teatro Centrale, per il Teatro Stabile di Roma / Proprietà dell’autore’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: S_1960_166
A black frame painted in tempera along the edges of a sheet of paper, quite similar to Schermi (Screens) from the 1960s, frames the set design sketch for L’Isola (inv. 3438), a play that Mauri wrote, designed and directed; the title is in the lower margin. The artist built up the layout in overlapping layers, using typical comic-book techniques and materials: he shaded the blue sky-backdrop using a pre-printed pattern on transparent acetate; pencil dots around the yellow clouds simulate the characteristic transferable screens; the trunk of the palm tree is made out of silver paper; red theatre wings drawn on paper and mounted on acetate complete the composition.1
1. The upper acetate with the red wings was added by the artist in the 1990s.
1990-1991, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma Anni Sessanta. Al di là della pittura, 20 December 1990 – 15 February 1991, curated by Maurizio Calvesi, Rosella Siligato.
1993, Rome, Galleria del Cortile, Tridente Otto. Arte e altro, altro è arte, 21 March – 21 April.
2013, Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Arte totale: il Gruppo ’63, 18 October – 3 November, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2023, Zurich, Hauser & Wirth, Fabio Mauri. Amore mio, 30 September – 23 December, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Maurizio Calvesi, “Roma anni '60. Al di là della pittura”, in Roma Anni ’60. Al di là della pittura, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Maurizio Calvesi, Rosella Siligato (Rome: Edizioni Carte Segrete, 1990), p. 200 (ill.).
Tridente Otto. Arte e altro, altro è arte, exhibition catalogue, Galleria del Cortile, Rome (Rome, 1993), p. 60 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu (Milan / Rome: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori / Carte Segrete, 1994), p. 27 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), p. 29 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 15, pp. 32–33 (ill.).
Lorenzo Madaro, “Lungo viaggio nell'archivio di Fabio Mauri”, in Arte, no. 581, Milan, January 2022, p. 126 (ill.).
