(Boston 1913–2000 Parma)
“Site D” M-1–62, 1962, signed; signed, titled and inscribed on the reverse, collage and mixed media (plates with rivets) on wood, 152.4 x 121.8 cm

Provenance:
Kootz Gallery, New York (label on the reverse)
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York (label on the reverse)
Galleria d’Arte Niccoli, Parma (stamp on the reverse)
European Private Collection
Studio Gariboldi, Milan (stamp and label on the reverse)
European Private Collection (acquired from the above by the present owner)

Exhibited:
Venice, Omaggio a Conrad Marca-Relli, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 5–24 September 1998 (label on the reverse)
Darmstadt, Conrad Marca-Relli: Works 1945–1996, Institut Mathildenhöhe, 2000, exh. cat. p. 131 with ill.
Prato, Marca-Relli, Tensioni Composte, Galleria Open Art, 30 October 2004–8 January 2005, exh. cat. p. 44, with ill.
Milan, Conrad Marca-Relli-Protagonista dell’Espressionismo Astratto Americano, Rotonda di via Besana, 15 July-28 September 2008

Literature:
M. Vallora (ed.), Marca-Relli. L’amico americano. Sintonie con Afro e Burri, Galleria D’Arte Niccoli, Parma 2002, p. 295 with ill.
D. Anfam, M. Dabrowski (ed.), Conrad Marca-Relli-Protagonista dell’Espressionismo Astratto Americano, Bruno Alfieri Editore, Milan 2008, p. 148 and 230 with ill.

“Conrad Marca-Relli's achievement has been to raise collage to a scale and
complexity equal to that of monumental painting. Since its inception in 1912
by Picasso and Braque, collage has undergone many formal transformations,
yet it has remained a corollary to painting. Even a master collagist, Jean Arp,
could refer to collage as a "less-refined" medium. Beginning in 1953, Marca-Relli
accepted the potential risks inherent in collage and developed it as a complete
pictorial system essentially without precedent in modern art.
He has used it neither as a single element of structural reordering of reality as in cubist collage, nor as ambiguous fragments evoking exterior associations as did the Surrealists. Rather, Marca-Relli has extended collage to the point where it now carries its own full and distinct range of formal and emotive means (…)
Works of 1962 (…) use vinyl sheets nailed directly to a wooden support.
Following his innate tendency to formal reduction and simplicity, the shapes gradually cast off traces of biomorphism and became progressively fewer in number, larger and more open”.

Excerpt from the catalogue of the exhibition
held at the Whitney Museum of American Art
October 4-November 11, 1967.