Alberto Burri

Italian, 1915 - 1995

BiographyBorn Città di Castello, 12 March 1915; died Nice, 15 Feb 1995.

Italian painter and sculptor. Trained as a physician, he began painting during his internment as a prisoner of war in Hereford, TX. He abandoned medicine and settled in Rome upon repatriation in 1946. Burri’s first solo exhibition in 1947 at La Margherita in Rome featured expressionistic landscapes (e.g. 1947; Città di Castello, priv. col., see cat. rais., p. 15) and still-lifes. In his earliest abstractions (1948–9) the inspiration of Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Hans Arp and Enrico Prampolini is discernible, although the addition of tar, pumice, sand, enamel and collage elements to the oil in such works as Composition (1948; priv. col., see cat. rais., p. 19) was more significant. A protagonist of Art informel, Burri’s career evolved through series that overlapped chronologically, in which he used unorthodox materials and processes. In this he was a precursor of Arte Povera. In 1950 he produced his first Sacks, paintings that displayed broad expanses of worn and stained sacking . Colour was restricted to red and black, which enhanced the effect of desolation. Burri’s use of ‘poor’ materials offered an alternative to the hermetic painted surfaces of the contemporary geometric ‘post-Cubist’ Concrete art movement. In contrast to idealist aesthetics of the Fascist era, Burri’s works signified a re-engagement with life without recourse to realism. Burri remained aloof from the contemporary debates in Italy about the political significance of abstract and realist art and refused to offer a metaphorical reading of his art. With Mario Ballocco (b 1913), Ettore Colla and Giuseppe Capogrossi he founded the Gruppo Origine in 1951, which declared a commitment to an anti-decorative and non-referential art of pure abstract fundamentals.

From the late 1940s Burri expanded the frontiers of painting by cutting, layering, and burning diverse materials. With few exceptions his works were named after their constituent materials or formative processes: for example the dark, sticky Tars of the late 1940s (e.g. 1949; priv. col., see cat. rais., p. 21), and the burnt surfaces of the Combustions of the later 1950s and early 1960s. At this time Burri departed from overtly sensuous and expressionistic effects in the more restrained and physically resilient Woods and Irons. From the mid-1960s the effects of fire were explored in the draped, scorched membranes of the Plastics. However, the 1970s were marked by more austere works, such as the cracked, desiccated Clays (e.g. Black Clay G.4., 1975; Città di Castello, Col. Burri). In the same period the Cellotex series consisted of works made from industrial fibreboard that divided the pictorial field into flat zones differentiated by texture and colour. While the dimensions of early works ranged greatly, a more consistent monumentality prevailed from the 1970s. In the 1980s Burri’s work included the highly colourful Sextant series (e.g. Sextant 7, 1982; priv. col., see cat. rais., p. 317). However, this sensuality was followed by a return to the Blacks series, re-exploring concerns of the 1950s. Burri also produced such sculptures as the Large Iron (5.18×1.98×0.61 m, 1980; Città di Castello, Col. Burri).

Marcia E. Vetrocq. "Burri, Alberto." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T012606 (accessed March 22, 2012).

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