Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana was born on February 19, 1899, in Rosario de Santa Fé, Argentina, to parents of Italian origin. His father, Luigi Fontana, was an architect and sculptor from Varese who had emigrated to Argentina and developed an intense activity in public and commemorative sculpture. During World War I, Fontana volunteered in the Royal Italian Army, reaching the rank of second lieutenant. In 1921, after obtaining his diploma as a building surveyor, he returned to Argentina where he worked in his father's workshop, initially specializing in cemetery sculpture before exploring more personal and innovative artistic paths. In 1924, together with painter Julio Vanzo, he opened his own sculpture studio in Rosario, abandoning his father's realistic style and instead looking toward the cubist approaches of artists such as Aleksandr Archipenko. In 1927 he received his first important commissions and won several public competitions; that same year he returned to Italy and enrolled in the first year of sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where he became a student of master Adolfo Wildt. After graduating in 1930, Fontana created works such as Uomo nero and participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale with two groups, including the bronze Vittoria alata, and held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria del Milione in Milan, where he exhibited regularly in subsequent years. In 1935 he began experimenting with ceramics, and in 1937 he traveled to Paris for the Universal Exposition, where he met Tristan Tzara and Constantin Brancusi, saw works by Picasso, and visited the Sèvres ceramic workshops. In 1936 he collaborated with E. Persico, M. Nizzoli, and G. Palanti on the project for the Salone della Vittoria at the VI Triennale in Milan, creating the large Vittoria dell'aria. Before leaving Italy, he approached the Corrente movement, exhibiting at a group show in 1939. During World War II he returned to Argentina, where he taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Buenos Aires and signed the Manifiesto Blanco, a foundational document for the establishment of the Spatialism movement. In 1947 he returned definitively to Italy and settled in Milan, where he drafted the First Spatial Manifesto, followed by other manifestos in 1948, 1950, 1951, and 1952. Spatialism, the movement he founded, was characterized by the search for new forms of expression that reflected the needs of contemporary spirit, advocating the need to transcend past art by taking the painting out of its frame and sculpture out of its glass bell. In 1949 he exhibited at MoMA in New York in the exhibition Twentieth-Century Italian Art and participated in the Venice Biennales of 1948 and 1950. In 1950 he participated in the competition for the fifth door of the Milan Cathedral. Upon his return to Italy, he presented his Spatial Environments at the Milan Triennale in 1951 and began developing his celebrated holes in the 1950s, followed by slashes in 1958. In 1966 at the XXXIII Venice Biennale he collaborated with architect Carlo Scarpa creating an oval labyrinthine environment illuminated by white light where five white canvases crossed by a single slash are displayed within niches, a work of extraordinary resonance that won the prize for painting. Fontana's most renowned works are his monochrome canvases characterized by slashes and holes, which represent a radical break with artistic tradition and an opening toward new spatial dimensions. Fontana died on September 7, 1968, in Comabbio, leaving an artistic legacy of extraordinary importance that has profoundly influenced contemporary art.