Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) is one of the major names of Italian Futurism, not only for his paintings – La Musica (1911) in the Estorick Collection is undoubtedly the most famous – but also as a musician and composer.
His invention of the gurgling, buzzing, exploding intonarumoro (noise-intoner) was enthusiastically received by Stravinsky and Prokofiev and he is described by the New Grove Dictionary as “the most spectacular innovator among the Futurist musicians”.
Sadly, many of his compositions in both paint and music were destroyed, prompting the Royal Academy’s catalogue of the 1989 Italian Art in the 20th Century exhibition to assert that the Realist works Russolo produced during the last years of his life have been “lost”.
Well, the Exeter branch of Bearne’s (15/10% buyer’s premium) seemed to come up with one at their July 2 picture sale. This unassuming signed 9 x 111/2in (23 x 29cm) landscape on board, right, was entered (with half a dozen etchings by the same hand) by a local gentleman who is a direct descendant of Russolo.
Both the vendor and the auctioneers were understandably in the dark about the value of this painting, given that according to Art Sales Index no oil by the artist has been sold at auction in the last 10 years.
A 1912 crayon drawing did fetch £75,000 at Sotheby’s in June 1999, but Russolo’s Futurist works are clearly in a different commercial league from these later, more traditional landscapes.
Bearne’s were, understandably, hoping the art market grapevine would produce some international interest, but on the day the hoped-for deluge of phone bids from New York and Milan did not materialise. A speculative £2000-3000 estimate proved accurate enough and the painting went to a local dealer at £3900.
The last oil painting by Russolo to appear at auction was the slightly larger, signed and dated 1946 panel, Il pioppo sotta la luna, which fetched Li5.5m (£2515) at Finarte Milan back in June 1992. So perhaps this wasn’t a million miles away from the right price for a rare late work by the inventor of the intonarumoro.
Is rediscovered Russolo a speculative sleeper?
Dealers are always complaining that, thanks to the Internet and the trade Press, there are no sleepers any more. But a seriously interesting group of pictures appears to have slipped through the trawl nets of specialist London dealers, leaving a local West Country trader with what may turn out to be a canny buy.
