The market for postwar Italian artist Alberto Burri is sure to get a boost from “The Trauma of Painting,” his first U.S. retrospective in more than three decades, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum October 9 through January 6, 2016. Though Burri has continued to trail contemporary Lucio Fontana by a wide margin on the block, his slashed and burned compositions of mundane materials have been gaining ground since crossing the $3 million mark at Christie’s London in 2007; his artist record was set at that same house when Combustione plastica, 1960, sold for £4,674,500 ($7.7 million) in February of last year. This month, those interested in his oeuvre will have ample opportunity to enhance their collections: A selling exhibition of 30 fresh-to-market works at Mazzoleni Art in London runs October 2 through November 30, and a trio of lots hits the block at Sotheby’s London on October 15. The incendiary Bianco plastica , 1961, a potent mix of Abstract Expressionism and Italian invention, is estimated at £1.5 million to £2 million ($2.3–3 million) while Rosso Plastica, 1960, left, is expected to bring £700,000 to £1 million ($1–1.5 million).
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