Piero Dorazio
1927 - 2005

Tic-Tac Rosso. 1959/60.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse of the canvas, along with a later personal dedication. Also signed and dated “June 29, 1980” on the reverse. 197 x 197 cm (77.5 x 77.5 in).


• A monumental key piece from the artist's most sought-after creative period, unprecedented on the international auction market in terms of quality and size.
• Exhibited at the 30th Venice Biennale in 1960, where Dorazio had his own exhibition space and which marked his international breakthrough.
• Between Constructivism and Op Art: a complex, vibrant structure composed of a multitude of intersecting lines.
• Part of a Southern German private collection for 25 years.
• Comparable works are part of the world's most prestigious collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, D.C., the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Germany (1980, acquired directly from the artist).
Private collection, Southern Germany (1998, acquired from the above).

EXHIBITION: XXX. Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte di Venezia, Venice, June 18–October 16, 1960, p. 136 (with the label on the stretcher).
Venice Biennale Prize-Winners 1960, McCormick Place Art Gallery, Chicago; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; World House Galleries, New York; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, Feb. 14–Mar. 4, 1961 (with a black-and-white illustration, detail).
Nul, Galerie Ad Libitum, Antwerp, Jan. 13–Feb. 13, 1962, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, March 1962 (illustrated).
De Nieuwe Stijl Werk van de Internationale Avantgarde, Galerij de Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, April–May 1962 (illustrated).
Bienal de Arte, Museo de Arte Moderno, São Paulo, September–December 1963.
Piero Dorazio. Mostra retrospettiva 1946–1975, Palazzo del Popolo, Sala delle Pietre, Todi, March–May 1975.
Cosa succede, Studio F.22 Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Palazzolo sull’Oglio, October 1975, cat. no. 28 (illustrated)
Europe/America: L'Astrazione Determinata 1960/1976, Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Bologna, May 23–Sept. 30, 1976, cat. no. 4 (illustrated in b/w, with the label on the stretcher).
Piero Dorazio. Gli anni sessanta, PAC / Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Oct. 15–Dec. 31, 1998, pp. 17 and 49.
Energie - Hoffnung - Freude. Piero Dorazio, Kunstmuseum Altes Rathaus, Bayreuth, July 13–Oct. 12, 2003.
Piero Dorazio. Opere dal 1947 al 2003, Pinacoteca Casa Rusca, Locarno, Feb. 22–Mar. 30, 2004 (with the label on the stretcher).

LITERATURE: Marisa Volpi Orlandini, Jacques Lassaigne, and Giorgio Crisafi, Dorazio, Milan 1977, CR no. 388 (illustrated in b/w and full-page illustrations, no. 59).
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Will Grohmann, Piero Dorazio o del ritorno alla qualità in pittura, in: Metro, Milan 1962, p. 50 (illustrated).
Institut Valencia d'Art Modern (ed.), exhibition catalog Dorazio, Valencia 2003, p. 243 (illustrated; the work in the background).
Annette Papenberg-Weber, Piero Dorazio. Die künstlerische Formierung bis 1959, Basel 2002, p. 151 (full-page color illustration).
Denis Viva, Gli antenati elettivi. Giacomo Balla astrattista tra Forma 1 e Origine (1948–1954), in: Fondazione Memofonte (ed.), Studi di Memofonte, Studio per l’elaborazione informatica delle fonti storico-artistiche, 13/2014, p. 214 (illustrated, no. 10).
Francesca Pola (ed.), exhibition catalog Spaces of Light. Piero Dorazio and the International ZERO Movement / e il movimento internazionale ZERO, Cortesi Gallery, Milan 2021, p. 64 (full-page color illustration on p. 65).