Brutalist Abstract Wooden Sculpture, Italy, 1970s

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Brutalist Abstract Wooden Sculpture, wood, Italy, 1970s.

Two upright panels built from vertical strips of wood leave a triangular opening between them. They stand on short legs over a low, curved base. The strips alternate in tone and depth, some darkened and some left light, which gives the surface a rhythm of light and shadow as the viewer moves around it. The edges are cut cleanly and the wood keeps its original grain and wear. Bertolotto worked in a naïf, primitive vocabulary, closer to a carpenter’s logic than to a sculptor’s academy, and this piece from the 1970s shows it in the way every strip is fitted against the next.