LONDON.- Bonhams new Contemporary Art Department announced the sale of a highly important work by one of the most influential Italian artists of the 20th century, Alighiero E Boetti (1940-1994), in the Department’s inaugural sale on 13 October 2011. Attracting a pre-sale estimate of £1,200,000 – 1,800,000 and entitled 1984, this monumental piece comprises 192 intricate pencil drawings of magazine covers which were published in 1984. Composed of 12 panels, one documenting each month of the year, it is the first time that this work has appeared at auction. Boetti was a key member of the Arte Povera group of young Italian artists in the late 1960s which worked in radically new ways using simple and everyday materials, granting them a new lease of life through their clean and organic aesthetic. While Boetti is most famous for his series of large embroidered maps of the world, Mappa, he is also renowned for his pop