Abstract Speed + Sound by Giacomo Balla was created in 1914. The painting is in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The size of the work is 54,5 x 76,5 cm and is made as an oil on unvarnished millboard.
It has been proposed that Abstract Speed + Sound (1913–14) was the central section of a narrative triptych suggesting the alteration of landscape by the passage of a car through the atmosphere.1 The related Abstract Speed (Velocità + paesaggio, 1913) and Abstract Speed—The Car Has Passed (1913) would have been the flanking panels. Indications of sky and a single landscape are present in the three paintings; the interpretation of fragmented evocations of the car’s speed varies from panel to panel. Read more in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
About the Artist: Italian painter Giacomo Balla was born in Turin. He was, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. By age 20, his interest in visual art had developed to such a level that he decided to study painting at local academies, and several of his early works were shown at exhibitions. Following academic studies at the University of Turin, Balla moved to Rome in 1895. For several years he worked in Rome as an illustrator, caricaturist and portrait painter… Read more
