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B. 1946
IO SONO UN PESCATOR (I AM A FISHERMAN)

IO SONO UN PESCATOR (I AM A FISHERMAN)

74 3/4 by 59 in. 190 by 150 cm.

signed; signed, titled and dated 83 on the reverse

oil on canvas

The Chia Archive, Rome, has confirmed the present painting to be by Sandro Chia based on photographic material.

PROVENANCE

Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Fermart Ltd., Geneva
Private Collection, New York

EXHIBITED

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Expressive Malarie Nach Picasso, 1983, cat. no. 18

NOTE

"In this place, surrounding by my paintings sculptures, I am like a lion tamer amongst his beasts and I feel close to the heroes of my childhood, close to Michelangelo, Tiziano and Tintoretto. I'll make these sculptures and these paintings dance on only one leg to my music and for my pleasure. I have the absolute power of death and life over them, I can make this strange creatures beautiful or ugly, I can destroy them, I can change their subject, their color and their form. I am here in the interior of the cave labyrinth and I am thinking that the painter is like Theseus. [..... ]

At the end a painting, a sculpture, is nothing but the prize of such a courting or the trophy of such a chase. At the moment that the painter drags the result of his work out of the labyrinth to show it to the world, the world itself is transformed into another labyrinth. A work of art does not simplify the world, but infinitely complicates all of its aspects. At this point any distinction between interior and exterior is removed and I am no longer able to determine my location in this house of mirrors." (Sandro Chia, Letter to Edy De Wilde, Museum Director, New York, February 20, 1993)