Geometric I

Roberto Crippa was born in 1921 in Milan and studied at the Brera Academy, from which he graduated in 1947, the year he held his first solo exhibition at the Bergamini Gallery in Milan. In the period 1948-1952 he created his well-known colored spirals, colorful organizations of color fields intertwined with each other, which constitute one of the first examples of Italian gestural painting. His friendship with Lucio Fontana led to his contact with the "Spatialist Movement" and the signing of the manifesto "Manifesto of Spatialist". In the period 1954-1956 he incorporated unusual materials into his works, creating landscapes-objects with wood reliefs and gradually using materials such as iron, bronze and steel from which compositions emerge that have references to primitive, primitivist art, his well-known Totem. In the last phase of his work, geometry dominates his compositions, structuring landscapes that the artist renders as a composition of geometric planetary spaces and diagonal lines of the horizon. He has developed a great deal of exhibition activity, holding forty solo exhibitions and participating in numerous group exhibitions. He died in 1972 in a plane crash.