Muro Romano

1958

Mimmo Rotella

Painter, Italian, 1918 - 2006

Sheets of cream-white and slate-blue paper are layered and then torn away to create a textured collage peppered with blurry, coffee-brown spots, sometimes densely spaced, and a few speckles and streaks of terracotta red in this rectangular, abstract composition. The artist created this work using a process called decollage, where layers of paper are first adhered to the surface of the canvas and then some are stripped away to reveal the layers beneath. The first impression of this composition could be of an incomplete antique map, especially because the largest white form, to our left, is reminiscent of the shape of North America, and a crease running across the center is like the equator on a map. A strip of off-white paper also lines the right edge of the canvas and about a dozen small, jagged white shapes are spread across the work. In some areas, especially in the upper right quadrant, an under-layer of paper patterned with a grid of dark lines over lime green and raspberry pink shows through one or more layers of paper. The brown dots resemble foxing, as if some of the paper was discolored or stained. Most of the terracotta-red streaks are concentrated on the large shape to our left, but there are spots scattered lightly across much of the composition. Some of the white areas are textured, and could include adhesive or paste, and the blue paper is wrinkled throughout.
This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.
On View

NGA, East Building, EU-407-A, E


Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

2014

  • Make it New: Abstract Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, 1950-1975, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 2014, no. 23, repro.

Inscriptions

sideways, lower left reverse: Muro Romano; upper right reverse: "MURO ROMANO" / 1958-59 Rotella 78[circled] / 190 x 128; lower center right reverse: DS 97

Wikidata ID

Q20195041


You may be interested in

Loading Results