Natale Sapone

Natale Domenico Antonio Sapone (born December 17, 1920 in Reggio Calabria , Italy ; † January 6, 2002 in Frauenfeld , Switzerland ) was an Italian-Swiss painter, draftsman, graphic artist, sculptor and designer of concrete art.

Life

Natale Sapone was born in 1920 in the south of Italy, in Reggio Calabria , and attended the Istituto d'Arte "Mattia Preti" there from 1931 to 1939. When he moved to Milan he had the opportunity to study at the Accademia di belle Arti de Brera with Professor Giuseppe Palanti, where he was taught in the traditional style of the 19th century. Sapone's artistic career was interrupted from 1940 to 1945 by military service.

From 1945 to 1946 he worked in his home country as a drawing teacher at the state middle school, before completing his studies in Milan with Professor Atanasio Soldati in the subjects of design and decoration. He then worked for the architects Peressuti, Rogers and Belgioioso in Milan. From portraits to impressionistic figurative things, Sapone only found his way to constructive art after the war and initially experienced this as a shock.

Looking for work, the young artist came to Central Switzerland in 1947 and worked as a designer and decorator in an art ceramics studio in Einsiedeln . After a stay in Paris at the Académie André Lhote , Sapone returned to Switzerland and settled in Frauenfeld in 1951 . With the support of collectors and gallery owners, Sapone was able to build up a large network, especially in German-speaking Switzerland.

Sapone gradually moved away from figurative image content and increasingly dealt with the fundamental laws of formal design. The geometrical order of images, which can be felt in the figurative works of that epoch, refer to the development towards concrete formulation, which ended Sapone's figurative phase in the 1960s. In addition to his work as a painter and sculptor, Natale Sapone designed jewelry for the renowned Bucherer company. In the early 1970s, he also designed objects in ceramics, porcelain and glass for the Rosenthal Porcelain Manufactory .

Sapone received Swiss citizenship in 1986.

plant

In the 1960s, Sapone's painting changed significantly. The impressionistic manner gave way to an increasingly clear language of color and form, which he drew from the geometric fund. With constructive approaches he found his own visual language, which he initially based on the circle, in order to then find the ideal figure in the pentagram , which he varied again and again and came to astonishing visual solutions. Through the combination of the shape of the circle and the rectangle and the formula of the golden ratio, Sapone's works can be classified in the artistic tradition of the 20th century, along with Josef Albers , Max Bill , Richard Paul Lohse , Verena Loewensberg and Carlo Vivarelli . With the leitmotif of the eight-center circle, through movement and up to the Pentagon constellation, Sapone was able to distance himself from the concrete and created his own pictorial formula.

Natale Sapone is one of the best-known representatives of the third generation of Concrete Art and Op Art in Switzerland. In his work, he fades out the narrative moment and replaces it with formal structures that are intended to appeal to the viewer purely through the optical effect. Sapone developed a system of geometric shapes and luminous color tones, which he used as starting prototypes for his artistic experiments until the final basic pattern for a model was found. Natale Sapone works can be found in the public space in Frauenfeld and in the Art Museum Ingolstadt , in the Art Museum of the Canton Thurgau , Kartause Ittingen in Warth and in the collection of the Kunstverein Frauenfeld.

Eight-center circles

Sapone's first works in the field of construction are the eight-center circles. It is a construction of various arcs and lines. The circle inscribed in a square is constructed with the help of eight different centers. In the 1970s, this resulted in further variations of circles and three-dimensional objects that Sapone called movements. With these completely independent works, Sapone created a special place in the field of constructive art. The new works were shown for the first time in 1966 in the Wirth Gallery in Berlin and a small part of them was included in the Wirth Collection. They were exhibited with the collection in 1999 in the Waszkowiak Gallery. Covers: Berliner Morgenpost February 10, 1999, Waszkowiak Gallery January 15, 1999, Berliner Kunstkalender 81 from December 1998 - January 1999. With orders for jewelry designs from Bucherer and porcelain from Rosenthal, Natale Sapone expanded his idea of ​​eight-center circles to include handicrafts .

Generate movements

The real characteristic of Sapone's art is the circle, which has been neglected by some concrete figures compared to the square and the rectangle. He has been working with the variations of square, circle and segment of a circle since the 1970s. Spatially tangible dynamic rotations emerged, which he later continued as a series and intersection of circles on the basis of pentagons inscribed by the rectangle. The combination of the pentagon with the circular shape and the rectangle led in the 80s to the pentagonal grid system, a harmonizing system of order which brings out the variability of the formulation possibilities.

Pentagon constellations

Sapone called the Pentagon the perfect geometric figure. With this simple basic pattern as a construction principle, he was able to find an infinite number of variants on a topic. The examination of the pentagon, from which the golden ratio results, which is decisive in nature, but also in architecture, was expressed in various materials. Initially, Sapone mainly worked in the technique of oil painting on canvas and then expanded the spectrum to include the perfectionist technique of enamel or acrylic varnish on aluminum or wood. The pentagram inscribed in the circle has become the blueprint for all works since the 1980s.

Intuitive coloring

The rational order system in connection with the subjective intervention is not only an immanent principle of the formal concept in the work of Sapone, but can consequently also be transferred to color choice and color order. With consciously set color tones, strict black-and-white contrasts and cheerful complementary colors, the artist creates a harmonious color scheme that combines order and feeling.

Quote

«Life is so rich, so beautiful 'si bellissima' that this thought has to be captured somewhere. My ability to portray and convey the 'bellezza' of life lies in the fine arts. I see my task in this. "

- Natale Sapone in an interview with Elisabeth Grossmann in December 1989

Awards

• 1972 Cavalier della Stella della Solidarietà nazionale by the President of the Italian Republic for many years of creative activity in Switzerland as an Italian cultural and artistic creator
• 1975 1st prize Ville de Genève, Musée de l'horlogerie, competition in enamel work, Geneva
• 1980 1st prize in the “Art in Architecture” competition for a sculpture at the University of Zurich-Irchel, Zurich
• 1986 Recognition award from the city of Frauenfeld for artistic activity, Frauenfeld
• 1986 Thurgau Culture Prize, Frauenfeld

Exhibitions (selection)

From the mid-1940s, Natale Sapone was present in Italy, Germany and Switzerland with numerous solo and group exhibitions.

• Natale Sapone, Antonio Scaccabarozzi and Francesco Pignatelli, Galerie La Ligne, Zurich, August 31, 2013 - October 12, 2013
• Natale Sapone (1921-2002). From early work to maturity, Kunstverein Frauenfeld, Frauenfeld , June 21, 2009 - July 26, 2009
• Natale Sapone. Retrospective. Pictures, sculptures, serigraphs, jewelry, Kunstverein Frauenfeld, Frauenfeld, September 29, 1996 - October 27, 1996
• Natale Sapone, 16th sculpture exhibition, meadow near the Uster town hall, Uster May 1, 1992 - September 30, 1992
• University Art Museum, Austin TX (USA), 1975
• Spiel und Ernst, Kunsthaus Glarus , Glarus, 1970

literature

• Sabine Arlitt : Multiple Art. Sulgen 2007.
• 11th Hilzinger art exhibition. Text: Herbert Berner. Hilzingen, school auditorium 1982.
• 18th Hilzingen art exhibition with the special exhibition "Natale Sapone", October 15-22, 1995 in Hilzingen town hall. Exhibition and catalog: Paul Gönner. Hilzingen 1995.
• fz: Give the city two works of art. In: Thurgauer Zeitung. May 8, 2007, p. 27.
• Eugen Gomringer: Natale Sapone and the development of constructive techniques. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch 1998. Volume 73, Frauenfeld 1998, pp. 15–26. ( e-periodica )
• Eugen Gomringer, Elisabeth Grossmann: Natale Sapone. Work 1960-1990. Constance 1990.
• Eugen Gomringer among others: Museum for Concrete Art, Ingolstadt. ed. v. Peter Volkwein, Heidelberg 1993.
• Elisabeth Grossmann: Concrete art in a personal way. In: Bodensee Hefte. International monthly magazine for nature, culture and leisure. No. 12, December 1987, pp. 14-17.
• Rolf Lambrigger: Zurich. Contemporary outdoor art. Zurich 1985.
• Natale Sapone. New works / New works / Oeuvres nouevelles / Nuove opere . 1985, Galerie Palette, Zurich 1985.

Movie

• Marco Caduff, Beat Morell: Natale Sapone - A concrete painter by passion 1920-2002. SF DRS and 3Sat, video, 52 min, color, 16: 9, English / German, 2003.

documentation

• Documentation SIK-ISEA, Zurich; Natale Sapone dossier.
• Legacy archive: Werk natale sapone association.

Web links

• Website of the Natale Sapone Plant Association
• Sapone, Natale. In: Sikart

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.natalesapone.ch/pages/de/natale-sapone/mensch/biographie.php
2. ↑ Thurgauer Jahrbuch: Nekrolog für Natale Sapone. Retrieved April 27, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Eugen Gomringer, Elisabeth Grossmann: Natale Sapone. Work 1960–1990. E-gallery, Zurich 1990, p. 42.