Elephant Folio with color and b/w illustrations. Limited to 2000 copies, this copy boldly signed in black ink by the artist on second front free endpaper. Unpaginated (39 leaves, some printed on verso and recto, some on verso only),  including a facsimile of the original "Manifiesto Blanco" published in Spanish in Buenos Aires in 1946 in which he sets forth the parameters for his art movement, "Spatialism," together with translations of the manifesto into Italian, German, French, and English, an homage by Alain Jouffroy, poems by Michel Fougares, Raffaele Carrieri, and Leonardo Sinisgalli, a statement by Fontana, 4 small illustrations, 5 large portrait photographic illus., and 17 large plates (12 in color or tint) showing details of Fontana's work.  Some leaves loose or separated from the block. Bound in publisher's binding, cloth backed, with slipcase (upper and lower panels largely separated, reinforced within).  Literature: Harry Ruhé & Camillo Rigo: "Lucio Fontana - graphics, multiples and more ...", Tuja Books, Amsterdam 2006, mentioned and ill. p. 197.

This important book is the last publication of Fontana for a retrospective/homage at the Galleria Apollinaire to his work, reproducing in full his original Manifiesto Blanco from 1946 in which he set forth the parameters for his art movement, “spatialism” which was going to revolutionize post-war Italian art.

"Lucio Fontana’s respect for the advancements of science and technology during the 20th century led him to approach his art as a series of investigations into a wide variety of mediums and methods. As a sculptor, he experimented with stone, metals, ceramics, and neon; as a painter he attempted to transcend the confines of the two-dimensional surface. In a series of manifestos originating with the “Manifesto blanco” (White manifesto, 1946), Fontana announced his goals for a “spatialist” art, one that could engage technology to achieve an expression of the fourth dimension. He wanted to meld the categories of architecture, sculpture, and painting to create a groundbreaking new aesthetic idiom."  (Jennifer Blessing, Guggenheim Online)