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SILVER Seller in Venezia, Italy
Color screen printing on cardstock, cm. 70×70 Signed in pencil by the author and numbered (specimen no. 30/100) The work “The Time of a Cigarette” is a rare color silkscreen by Hugo Pratt from 1977, dedicated to the abstract detail of Corto Maltese's blouse. The silkscreen is part of a portfolio of 12 color plates, 70 x 70 cm in size, published in Venice by Edizioni Multigraphic in 1977 and produced in only 100 copies numbered in Arabic numerals, plus a few out-of-print copies. During production, the Multigraphic laboratory was hit by high water, an event that damaged most of the print run, making the portfolio –and individual silkscreens – particularly rare on the market today. The subject is born from a detail of Corto Maltese's blouse, isolated and enlarged to become an abstract composition of flat, pulsating fields of color. After the portfolio experience “Brr… Brrr!” dedicated to the Canadian Redcoats, Pratt continues here his research on abstraction starting from the language of comics, inspired by Mondrian's geometric syntheses and Lichtenstein's clear, pop-oriented drafts. The use of compact black and yellow dots, juxtaposed with cuts of red and blue, emphasizes the graphic rhythm and conveys a reading that is both narrative and purely visual, in perfect continuity with his more experimental graphic production of the 1970s.
ID: 73557-1767629493-139636
