Piero Dorazio (1927 Rome, Italy – 2005 Todi, Italy) was a seminal Italian painter and a key figure in post-war abstract art.
After completing a classical secondary education (liceo classico), Dorazio initially studied architecture but soon turned to painting under the influence of Aldo Bandinelli, producing still lifes and landscapes. In 1947, at the age of twenty, he co-founded the influential abstract art group Forma 1 with Carla Accardi, Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Mino Guerrini, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo, and Giulio Turcato, contributing to the drafting of its manifesto. His early trips to Paris brought him into contact with major international artists, notably through Gino Severini.
In 1950, together with Guerrini and Perilli, he opened the bookshop-gallery L’Age d’Or to promote abstract art. Dorazio’s first solo exhibition in New York took place in 1953 at the Wittenborn One-Wall Gallery. Over the following decade, he participated in major exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1956, 1958, with a solo room in 1960) and Documenta in Kassel (1959). In 1960, he returned to the United States to teach at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1961 he was awarded the Prix Kandinsky. His work was featured in landmark exhibitions such as The Responsive Eye at MoMA, New York, in 1965.
Dorazio’s painting is characterized by vibrant color, rhythmic abstraction, and a synthesis of geometric structure and lyrical expression. His work bridges European abstraction with American color-field painting, positioning him as a major transatlantic figure of mid-20th-century art.
In 1974, he settled in Todi, Italy, where he established his home and studio. Over the subsequent decades, his work was celebrated through retrospectives in Paris (1979), Rome (1983), Grenoble (1990), Bologna (1991), Athens (1994), Milan (1998), Bolzano (2001), and Valencia (2003). He received numerous honors, including the Accademia di San Luca Prize (1986), the Alcide de Gasperi Prize for Arts and Sciences (1990), and membership in the Akademie der Künste, Berlin (1993).
Since 2017, the Piero Dorazio Archive has been compiling research to complete a catalogue raisonné of his oeuvre. Dorazio’s works are held in major public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome).
For information on available works by the artist, please contact the gallery.