Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana (b. 1899 Rosario de Santa Fé, Argentina – 1968 Comabbio, Italy) was born in Argentina and raised in Milan. He moved back to Argentina in 1922 where he worked as a sculptor in his father’s studio for several years. In 1926, he participated in the first exhibition of Nexus, a group of young local Argentinian artists. Returning to Milan in 1928, Fontana enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. His first solo show was held at Galleria Il Milione in Milan in 1931. In 1935 he traveled to Paris and joined the Abstraction-Création group. The same year, he developed his skills in ceramics in Albisola, Italy and Sevres, France. In 1939, he joined Corrente, a Milan-based group of expressionist artists, while intensifying his collaborations with architects. In 1940, he moved back to Buenos Aires, where he founded the Academia de Altamira with some of his students in 1946, from which the Manifiesto Blanco group emerged. He returned to Milan in 1947 and, together with a group of writers and philosophers, signed the Primo Manifesto dello Spazialismo. 

His first major international retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1977. Subsequent museum exhibitions include Musée national d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1987 (traveled to La Fundación ‘la Caixa’ Barcelona; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1988); Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1996 (traveled to Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 1997); Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan (1999); “Lucio Fontana. Entre Materia y Espacio,” La Fundación ‘la Caixa’ and Museo National Cantro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1998); Hayward Gallery, London (1999); and “Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York” Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2006–07).

Source: Gagosian