Piero Dorazio

Piero Dorazio (Rome, June 29, 1927 - Perugia, May 17, 2005) was an Italian painter whose paintings contributed from 1945 to the establishment of abstractionism in Italy. He started his student life in architecture, but he quickly found a new interest in art and specially in painting. He was only twenty years old when he took part in the drafting of “Formed I”. This manifesto inspired his whole future work.
In 1950, he set the bookshop-gallery “l’Age d’Or” with M. Guerilli and A. Perilli, a co-operative of artists for the spreading of art and the artistic press. In 1952 and 53, he contributed to the review “Arti visive” and almost two years later, he published “the art imagination in the modern life”.
He learnt a lot during his numerous voyages (Prague, Paris, the United States in 1960); he was a professor of art at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). In France, he met artists he admired so much as well as Braque, Arp, Leger, Magnelli, Le Corbusier. In the United States, Dorazio bound with Hans Richter and Robert Motherwell.
While he specialised in the reappearing Italian art, Piero Dorazio was all together a painter, an art critic, a lecturer and he devoted his time to organize exhibitions. From 1984, he contributed to the “Corriere della Sera” and he became the appointed art critic of it. At first, he created figurative paintings, then cubist and futuristic ones with vivid contrasted colors. The linear structure appeared in 1947. He knew one constructivist period (1955), then an abstract one. For the artistthe gesturewas essential; his“traceries”of lines and affixed colors, creating an optical skillful crossing of tone, were the expression of his gesture.

Piero Dorazio (Rome, June 29, 1927 - Perugia, May 17, 2005) was an Italian painter whose paintings contributed from 1945 to the establishment of abstractionism in Italy. He started his student life in architecture, but he quickly found a new interest in art and specially in painting. He was only twenty years old when he took part in the drafting of “Formed I”. This manifesto inspired his whole future work.
In 1950, he set the bookshop-gallery “l’Age d’Or” with M. Guerilli and A. Perilli, a co-operative of artists for the spreading of art and the artistic press. In 1952 and 53, he contributed to the review “Arti visive” and almost two years later, he published “the art imagination in the modern life”.
He learnt a lot during his numerous voyages (Prague, Paris, the United States in 1960); he was a professor of art at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). In France, he met artists he admired so much as well as Braque, Arp, Leger, Magnelli, Le Corbusier. In the United States, Dorazio bound with Hans Richter and Robert Motherwell.
While he specialised in the reappearing Italian art, Piero Dorazio was all together a painter, an art critic, a lecturer and he devoted his time to organize exhibitions. From 1984, he contributed to the “Corriere della Sera” and he became the appointed art critic of it. At first, he created figurative paintings, then cubist and futuristic ones with vivid contrasted colors. The linear structure appeared in 1947. He knew one constructivist period (1955), then an abstract one. For the artistthe gesturewas essential; his“traceries”of lines and affixed colors, creating an optical skillful crossing of tone, were the expression of his gesture.