Lucio Fontana

b. 1899 and died 1968

Fontana as a talented painter, sculptor and printmaker born in Argentina. He is known as the founder of the art movement Spatialism and was also connected to Arte Povera.

The early part of his distinguished career involved traveling throughout Italy and Argentina working with abstract and expressionist painters, but in 1958 he began to make his slash series. Fontana’s holes or slashes on painting surfaces and metal-based sheets increased his notoriety throughout the art world. Fontana was committed to abstraction and his slashed canvases sought to be not just abstract, but also performance based art. Fontana’s most important slashed and slit canvases brought an added dimension to the canvas. The slashes transcend the traditional canvas space and add a level of architectural space to his work. His works can be found in the permanent collection of over 100 international museums.