The first volume of the Catalogue Raisonné of the works of Mimmo Rotella (Catanzaro, 1918 - Milan, 2006) is part of a more extensive systematic cataloguing project of the artist's body of work by Germano Celant. The publication is being developed in partnership with the Mimmo Rotella Institute - established by Inna and Aghnessa Rotella in 2012 and directed by Antonella Soldaini - and the Mimmo Rotella Foundation, headed by Rocco Gugliemo. A scientific analysis and assessment is being conducted on the works executed during 1944-1961 - that is, from the artist's experimental research phase (first through figurative painting, then through geometric abstraction) to his development of the décollage and retro d'affiche techniques. Unfolding in chronological order, the Catalogue highlights the various stages of development of the artist's language, enabling a broader interpretation of the works executed in the period. Rotella started making use of wall posters in Rome in the early 1950s, and this became his hallmark. Thus the artist developed two parallel techniques: with the recto he created décollages, which were originally closer to the informal style of Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana's research at that time; with the verso of the posters, covered in wall matter and marked by mold, scratches, and traces of lime and plaster, he created his retro d'affiches.

Divided into three volumes, the catalogue raisonné dedicated to Mimmo Rotella's oeuvre looks at a career, spanning almost sixty years, of one of the great interpreters of Italian and international contemporary art. This first volume of the catalogue raisonné focuses on the period from 1944 to 1961: from Mimmo Rotella's first abstract experiments with a geometrical slant from the early 1950s to the creation of his famous décollages and retro d'affiches, internationally renowned by the beginning of the 1960s.