Alberto Burri

Alberto Burri was one of the most important Italian artists of the twentieth century, born on March 12, 1915, in Città di Castello, Italy. Son of Pietro, a wine merchant, and Carolina Torreggiani, an elementary school teacher, Burri graduated in medicine from the University of Perugia in 1940. During World War II, serving as a medical officer, he was captured by the British in Africa and interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Hereford, Texas, USA. It was during this imprisonment that he decided to abandon his medical career and dedicate himself to art, beginning to paint as a self-taught artist.

After the war, in 1946, Burri settled in Rome and started developing an abstract and material-based painting style, using unconventional materials such as tar, iron, wood, earth, and glue. His art anticipated movements like Arte Povera and New Realism, standing out for the innovative use of matter as the main expressive element. His works are considered examples of Informal Art, a movement rejecting traditional figurative and abstract art in favor of new communication through material.

Burri held his first exhibitions in Rome in 1947 and 1948, supported by poets like Libero De Libero and Leonardo Sinisgalli. Throughout his career, his artistic research increasingly focused on the use of extra-pictorial materials such as pumice and tar, which became distinctive features of his work. He died in Nice, France, on February 13, 1995. His work remains highly regarded and studied, with numerous important sales and valuations at auction houses such as Cambi.