By Melanie Gerlis, September 23, 2017
New York dealer Emmanuel Di Donna has taken on the estate of under-the-radar Italian artist Nuvolo, who died in 2008. Nuvolo was born Giorgio Ascani in 1926 and earned his nickname — meaning “cloud” in Italian — when serving in the Italian resistance in the second world war. Like many of his Italian contemporaries, Nuvolo experimented with unusual techniques and materials, deerskin in particular. In the 1950s and 60s, he was promoted and bought by the likes of Peggy Guggenheim, who gave some Nuvolo works to US museums, but he has never been in the market’s mainstream. Only four of his works have ever been offered at auction, according to Artnet, most recently at Sotheby’s in October 2016 when a 1961 deerskin sold for £56,250 (including fees).
“He didn’t really view his art as a commercial endeavour,” says Di Donna, who only discovered Nuvolo’s work 18 months ago. The gallerist opens Nuvolo and Postwar Materiality 1950-1965, a show of 20 works, mostly on loan from private collections, alongside other artists with similar preoccupations (Alberto Burri, Cy Twombly and Antoni Tàpies feature). The exhibition is curated by the arte povera scholar Germano Celant and runs October 27-January 26.