In this painting we can see “combs” of three different sizes, either alone or in groups, arranged against a grey background crossed by two white bands, almost resembling a road network seen from above, which meet perpendicularly in a decentralised position. 

After his debut in the 1930s within the climate of the Roman School, Giuseppe Capogrossi began to develop a concept of abstract painting in the late 1940s that resulted in him coming up with a comb-shaped sign over the next few years. This acted as the basis for all his subsequent painting. By developing Corrado Cagli’s idea of a “sign” upon returning to Rome from the United States, Capogrossi was therefore able to carry forward a painting focused on a specific motif and its infinite potential for different variations and combinations on the surface. In this painting we can see “combs” of three different sizes, either alone or in groups, arranged against a grey background crossed by two white bands, almost resembling a road network seen from above, which meet perpendicularly in a decentralised position. Meanwhile, at the top right, a pale box isolates outlines of the same motif, which correspond to the red patch where the two orthogonal lines meet. 

Superficie 74 (Surface 74), bought by Francesco Federico Cerruti before 1993, was painted during the most intense moment of his partnership with Carlo Cardazzo, the Venetian dealer and collector who moved to Milan, and although this has not been documented, it seems plausible that it was exhibited at the 201st Naviglio exhibition in 1955 (11-20 May), following on from the painter’s success at the Venice Biennale the previous year, coordinated by the gallery owner himself. The work later entered the Orlando Collection in Milan, as described in Giulio Carlo Argan’s monograph.

During that season, when presenting the 138th Naviglio exhibition (10-23 January 1953), Michel Seuphor interpreted Capogrossi’s work in the light of the lesson imparted by Piet Mondrian, with whom he shared the principle of work based on a single visual theme - defined as a “claw”, “hand”, “trident” or even “fork” - and its infinite variations. Michel Tapié, on the other hand, included him among the ranks of “autre” artists and, when describing his room at the 1954 Biennale, he claimed that the artist had “conquered his particular algorithm”,1 as suggested to him by the architect Mario Moretti (not cited), who endorsed Capogrossi in Spazio magazine. Cardazzo, meanwhile, associated the artist with Spatialism, the movement that he founded in Milan with the guidance of Lucio Fontana, and an extensive profile on him in this guise features in Giampiero Giani’s Lo Spazialismo of 1956. 

In the major monograph of 1967 accompanied by the first catalogue raisonné on the artist’s work edited by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Giulio Carlo Argan observed that this sign should be read as “a symbol of space” that establishes a relationship between the various parts of the pictorial field, acting as a “relationship agent” or “spatial coefficient”.2 At the same time, when considering paintings along the same lines as Superficie 74, which featured in a full-page black- and-white reproduction,3 Argan observed that Capogrossi worked as if starting out from an ideal framework in good order, so that he could then break it up either partly or completely. 

[Luca Pietro Nicoletti]

1 M. Tapié, “Capogrossi”, in Venice 1954, pp. 142-144.

2 G. C. Argan, anthology of texts and chronology, in Fagiolo dell’Arco 1967.

3 Ibid., pl. 19.