Untitled [Maquette for the Olivetti Showroom, New York City, NY]

When he received the commission for the Olivetti Showroom, Nivola had recently returned from a six-month trip to Italy, where he had the opportunity to reconnect with the Olivetti company, for whom he had worked as an art director before moving to America in 1939, and the architect studio BBPR. The artist started experimenting with various designs for the final work and produced four compositions for the Olivetti Showroom mural over the course of 1953; each of these is painted. Nivola used widely available, powdered paint to color his work. This differs from the full-scale version, which was left unpainted until it was relocated to the Harvard University Science Center in 1973. Untitled [Maquette for the Olivetti Showroom, NY] is one of the earliest compositions envisaged by the artist;
a playful design that delights in color.