(born 1954 in Foglianese, Italy)
‘12 Ottobre 1492’, on the reverse of the stretcher signed, dated Nicola de Maria 1981/1982 and titled on the overlap, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm, artist’s frame, (PS)

Provenance:
Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne –
purchased there in 1982 by the current owner
Private Collection, Germany

Exhibition/exhibition catalogue:
Kunstmuseum Basel 1983
Haus Lange, Krefeld, Ed. Gerhard Storck, EE AA Stop
Campane, Nicola de Maria, 1983: p. 62–64 (full page colour reproduction)

’Let’s start with an assertion which is easy to check; this painted work is similar to an opening. That is simply saying that it forces itself into something closed. The work has an open frame. The frame, which actively fixes appearance in the form of an image, covers the front, partly to the edge. The applied strips are flat and painted, and an active element in the work which by no means ends at the edges (the reverse is also painted)…It is not yet clear to what extent forwards and backwards are part of the image when viewing the closeness and the depth. The green lies almost outside our field of vision, certainly further than the clearing sky already mirrored brightly in the water. And yet the goal is ahead of us, the glowing path in the middle, just a stepping stone forwards, out of the image. An open land is waiting for us.’ America was discovered on 12 October 1492.
(Gerhard Storck, in: exhibition catalogue Krefeld, p. 62–64)