3470 - Valenti, Italo

Valenti, Italo 1912 Milan – 1995 Ascona Le Retour de Thésée. 1971–1980 Collage, painted Signed and dated lower left: I. VALENTI 1980. Titled, dated, and numbered on the reverse: Le Retour de Thésée 1971–1980 No. R. 236 Framed 114 × 110 cm Carlo Carena/Stefano Pult, Italo Valenti. Catalogo ragionato dei dipinti, Milan 1998, p. 545, no. C873, Inv. C 80.12 (with full-page illustration on p. 544) Italo Valenti, Galleria Civica, Campione d’Italia, September 26–November 14, 1982, No. 6; Italo Valenti. As part of “Scene Schweiz,” Galerie Pudelko, Bonn, September 30–December 1983 After moving to Ticino in 1952, Italo Valenti developed an increasingly abstract visual language through exchanges with artists such as Jean Arp, Julius Bissier, and Ben Nicholson. Beginning in the late 1950s, he engaged intensively with collage, the principles of which also influenced his painting. In this work, “Le Retour de Thésée,” he combines geometric areas of color with varying surface textures to create a clearly structured composition. The mythological title is characteristic of Valenti’s oeuvre, in which poetic and narrative references persisted even after his turn toward abstraction. Auction Date: November 28, 2026 Approximate Auction Time: 6:08 p.m. CET