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Biography of Lucio Fontana
By
the Lucio Fontana Foundation
Ideas are not scorned, they germinate in society and are then
expressed by philosophers and artists
(from the Manifesto Blanco, Buenos Aires, 1946)
Lucio Fontana was born in
Rosario in the Santa Fé region of Argentina on 19th February 1899. His Italian father, Luigi, who had lived in
Argentina for ten years, was a sculptor, and his mother, Lucia Bottino, also of Italian origin,
was a theatre actress. When he was six years old, he went with his father to Milan to attend
school. By 1910 he had already begun his artist's apprenticeship in his father's workshop. He
later enrolled in a school for Master Builders, before leaving to enlist as a volunteer in
the First World War. Wounded, and discharged with a silver medal for military
bravery, he took up his studies again and obtained his diploma. In 1921, he returned to Argentina, and began working as a sculptor in his father's workshop in
Rosario.
He later opened his own studio in the same city. Between 1925 and 1927, he won several competitions, and
produced, amongst other things, the monument to Juana Blanco.
He returned to Milan in 1928 to enrol in the 1st course
at the Brera Academy as a student of Adolf Wildt. At the end of the year, he was moved up to the fourth level. In the meantime, he took part in
exhibitions and competitions in Italy, Spain and Argentina. In 1930 he met Teresita
Rasini, whom he was later to marry. Moving freely between figurative and abstract, his sculpture
in terracotta and clay, with and without colour, gradually acquired greater freedom and individuality. During
these crucial years for his artistic development, he gained increasing recognition from
leading critics including Argan, Belli, Persico and Morosini and took part in
the Milan Triennial, the Venice Biennial and the Rome Quadrennial. He also held several exhibitions at
the Milione Gallery and began working in ceramics, first at Albisola and then in 1937 at
the Sèvres Factory, where he completed several small sculptures which he exhibited and
sold in Paris. By this time he was working closely with avant-garde
architects. In early 1940 he settled in Buenos Aires and
worked feverishly, winning numerous sculpture competitions. Professor of sculpture at the School
of Fine Arts, in 1946 he got together with others to set up a private art school
called the Academy of Altamira, which was to become an important centre for the promotion of culture.
It was here that, in constant contact with young artists and intellectuals, he formulated his
theories on artistic research, which would lead to the publication of the Manifesto
Blanco.
On returning to Milan in April 1947, Fontana founded the Movimento
spaziale (Spatial Movement) and, together with other artists and intellectuals, published the Primo Manifesto
dello Spazialismo (First Manifesto of Spatialism). He went back to working as a ceramist in Albisola and resumed
his collaboration with architects. The following year saw the publication of the
Secondo Manifesto dello Spazialismo (Second Manifesto of Spatialism). In 1949 he exhibited
L'ambiente spaziale a luce nera (The spatial environment in black light) at the Naviglio Gallery, which sparked both
enthusiasm and outcry. In the same year, he came up with his most original invention
when, perhaps inspired by his origins as a sculptor and in search of a third dimension,
he produced his first paintings in which he perforated the canvasses. In 1950 he published the Terzo manifesto spaziale.
Proposta per un regolamento (Third Spatial Manifesto. A Proposal for Regulation). In 1951, at the Ninth Triennial, where he was the first person to use
neon as an art form, he wrote his Manifesto tecnico dello Spazialismo (Technical Manifesto of Spatialism).
In 1952 he took part in a competition for the Fifth Door of the Cathedral of Milan
and was joint winner with Minguzzi. In the same year, he and other artists signed
the Manifesto del Movimento Spaziale per la Televisione (Manifesto of the Spatial Movement for Television), and he exhibited his
completed spatial works at the Naviglio Gallery in Milan. Again prompting
both enthusiasm and shock, Fontana was no longer limiting himself to making holes in canvasses, but was also painting them and applying colours,
inks, pastels, collages, sequins and fragments of glass. By now he had
gained international acclaim. In 1957, a series of works on linen paper featured not only
the holes and graffiti but also the first hints of the cuts which would be fully expressed
the following year. These included canvasses with a number of coloured cuts to
monochrome canvasses entitled Concetto spaziale (Spatial Concept) and Attesa (Wait). He took part in numerous exhibitions and
international displays and his work was purchased by
museums, galleries and the most respected collectors. A man of
enormous generosity, Fontana was always ready
to help young artists even when he lacked the material means. He encouraged them, bought their works
and gave them his own, even though he knew they would usually be sold
straight away. During those years, as well as making iron sculptures on stems, Fontana made a series of
works in terracotta, known as Nature, spherical shapes with
wide lacerations and gashes. He also continued to produce large and small format
ceramics and collaborated with eminent architects on
"environnement" works entitled Ambiente spaziale (Spatial Environment) in which he used
light as an innovative element with a technique later to be adopted by other artists. In the
sixties, Fontana devoted his attention to a series of oval oil paintings, all in the same
format, monochrome and perforated with numerous holes and slashes, and sometimes sprinkled with sequins,
called Fine di Dio (The End of God). He returned to the same subject in 1967 with a series of
ellipses on lacquered wood with brilliant colours, unique works created to his design. Between
1964 and 1966 he invented Teatrini: frames made of modelled and lacquered wood
containing monochrome perforated canvasses. He did not, however, abandon the "cuts", which he continued to
use until the end of his life. In 1966, the international jury of the 33rd Venice Biennial
awarded him first prize for painting for his white room, featuring white canvasses each with a single vertical slash. After leaving Milan and moving back to the old farmhouse he had had restored in Comabbio, his family's town of origin,
he died on 7th September 1968. The presence of Fontana's works in the permanent collections of
more than a hundred museums worldwide further testifies to the importance
of his art.
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