Tancredi * (Feltre/Belluno 1927-1964 Rome) Untitled, 1954, oil and mixed media on masonite, 92 x 125 cm, framed Provenance: Galleria Schettini, Milan (label and stamp on the reverse) Bluart Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Padua (stamp on the reverse) Sale Artcurial, 21 October 2007, Paris, Lot 1122 European private collection Exhibited: Milan, Rotonda di via Besana, January-February 1973, exh. cat. no. 62 with ill. (dated 1955) Milan, I Tancredi di Schettini, Galleria Schettini,13 December 1979–8 January 1980, exh. cat. no. 8 with ill. Milan, Tancredi. Il mio vocabolario e l’Universo, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, 13 September-18 October 1984, exh. cat. no. 21 with ill. (label and stamp on the reverse) Literature: M. Dalai Emiliani, Tancredi, i Dipinti e gli Scritti, Allemandi, Turin 1996, vol. I and II, ill. XIV, p. 242 no. 536 (with wrong dimension) It is the substance of the graphic sign that reveals itself as the true substance of the world, the swirl or arabesque or thread of dense, feverish writing that replaces every other possible world. The world is transformed into a line, a single broken, twisted, discontinuous line. Man too. And this man transformed into a line is finally the master of the world, although he does not escape his captivity because the line tends, after many twists and turns, to close in on itself, catching him in a trap. Tancredi