Lucio Fontana Argentinian, 1899-1968

In 1905 Lucio Fontana (b. 1899 Rosario, Argentina - d. 1968 Comabbio, Italy) emigrated with his father from Argentina to Milan, where he began in 1928 a two-year sculpture course in the Accademia di Belle Arte di Brera. In 1935 he signed, together with Solati, Veronesi and others, the first manifesto of Italian abstract art and devoted himself to working with ceramics in Albisola Mare. In 1947 Fontana signed the first Manifesto dello Spazialismo, which demanded the evolution of artistic means in the search for new experiences of space and the fusion of different artistic disciplines.

In the 1960s one finds an increasing number of perforated canvases in his oeuvre, as well as the Teatrino, where he put polished wooden elements in front of the canvas. Fontana took part in all of the large ZERO exhibitions until 1965 and, although he was in an older generation than that to which most of the other artists in the group belonged, he became a central figure of the ZERO movement, through his experimental artistic perspective and his vital character.