Alberto Burri (12 March 191513 February 1995; ) was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as a polymaterialist. He had connections with Lucio Fontana's spatialism and, with Antoni Tàpies, an influence on the revival of the art of post-war assembly in the United States (Robert Rauschenberg) as in Europe.
Life In the “Overrated and Underrated” column published by the American art magazine ARTnews, Alberto Burri's name is often mentioned. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev mentioning him in the January 2005 issue for example.
Alberto Burri was born on 12 March 1915 in Città di Castello, in Umbria to Pietro Burri, a Tuscan wine merchant, and Carolina Torreggiani, an Umbrian elementary school teacher. In 1935, Burri attended a government High school in Arezzo living as a boarder in a pension, and as his school reports noted, he studied Classics at a private school in Città di Castello.; On his return from North Africa, Burri and his younger brother Vittorio were enrolled in the medical school in Perugia, and following his African adventure, Burri decided he wanted to specialize in tropical diseases. Burri graduated from medical school in 1940, and on 12 October that year, two days after Italy's entrance into World War II, with a precocious voluntary experience in the Italo-Ethiopian War, was then recalled into military service, and sent to Libya as a combat medic. Army records show that within 20 days of this order, Burri received a temporary discharge to allow him to complete his medical internship and gain the diploma to qualify as a medical doctor. Burri claimed he studied art history, because he wanted to be able to understand the works of art that surrounded him. He also studied Greek, a language in which he became proficient, and later in life was able to read and enjoy Classical Greek literature. On 8 May 1943 the unit he was part of was captured by the British in Tunisia and was later turned over to the Americans and transferred to Hereford, Texas in a prisoner-of-war camp housing around 3000 Italian officers, where he began painting. After his liberation in 1946, he moved to Rome and devoted himself exclusively to painting; his first solo exhibition took place at La Margherita Gallery in 1947. He then exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery in New York and at the Gallery de France in Paris.
Prevented from practicing his medical profession, Burri had the opportunity of choosing a leisure activity thanks to the YMCA Association. Using the limited amount of materials available in the camp he took on the activity of painting, at the age of almost 30 and without any kind of academic reference. Meanwhile, the tragic death of his younger brother Vittorio on the Russian front in 1943 had a strong impact on him. Shutting himself off from the rest of the world, and depicting figurative subjects on thick chromatic marks, he progressively realized the desire of abandoning the medical profession, in favor of painting.
Paintings From abstraction to matter
Once Burri returned to Italy on 27 February 1946, his decision collided with the severe post–World War II recession and his parents' dissatisfaction. He moved to Rome as a guest of the violinist and composer Annibale Bucchi, his mother's cousin, who encouraged his activity as a painter.Carandente, Giovanni (2007). "Burri: memories of a friendship, 1948–1988". In Palumbo, Piero (2007). Burri, Una Vita. Milan: Electa. p. 176
While in Rome, he had the chance of establishing a contact with the few but very active institutions dedicated to painting, which were creating a new platform for visual arts after the war.
He remained a reserved artist, ceaselessly working and creating, initially in a small studio in Via Margutta but frequently moving out. As a matter of fact, Milton Gendel – an American journalist who visited Burri's studio in 1954 –, later reported: "The studio is thick-walled, whitewashed, neat and ascetic; his work is 'blood and flesh', reddened torn fabric that seems to parallel the staunching of wounds that Burri experienced in wartime.”
Burri's first solo figurative artworks exhibition took place on 10 July 1947 at the gallery-cum-bookshop La Margherita, in Rome, presented by the poets Leonardo Sinisgalli and Libero De Libero. However, Burri's artistic production flowed definitively into abstract forms before the end of the same year, the use of small format tempera resulting from the influence of such artists as Jean Dubuffet and Joan Miró, whose studio was visited by Burri during a trip to Paris in the winter of 1948.
Tars, Molds, Hunchbacks Burri's artistic research became personal in a short time, between 1948 and 1950 he began experimenting with using unusual, 'unorthodox' materials such as tar, sand, zinc, pumice, and Aluminium dust as well as Polyvinyl chloride glue, this last material being elevated to the same importance as oil colors. During this artistic transition, the painter showed his sensitivity to the mixed-media type of abstraction of Enrico Prampolini, a central figure in Italian Abstract art. Nonetheless, Burri went one step further in his Catrami (Tars), presenting tar not as a simple collage material, but as an actual color which – by way of different lucid and opaque shades in monochrome black– blended itself with the totality of the painting.
His 1948 "Nero 1" (Black 1) was later taken by the artist as initial milestone of his painting and established the prevalence of the black monochrome, which will be maintained as close identity throughout his career, alongside white, since Bianchi (Whites) 1949–50 series, and red.
The following series of Muffe (Molds) literally presented the spontaneous reactions of the materials employed, enabling matter to 'come to life' in drippings and concretions which reproduced the effects and appearance of real mold. In some artworks of the same period which he called Gobbi (Hunchbacks), Burri focused on the painting's spatial interaction, achieving another original outcome due to the incorporation of tree branches on the rear of the canvas which pushed two-dimensionality towards three-dimensional space.Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn (1997). "Alberto Burri, The Surface at Risk", in Tolomeo, Maria Grazia, Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn. Burri Retrospektive, 1915–1995. Milan: Electa. Exhibition catalogue. pp. 81–83
In 1949 the critic Christian Zervos published the photo of a Catrame (exhibited in Paris the previous year) in the renowned Cahiers d'art.
Despite Burri's affinity with informalism and his friendship with Ettore Colla, which brought Alberto close to the Gruppo Origine (established and disbanded in 1951 by Colla himself, Mario Balocco and Giuseppe Capogrossi), the painter's artistic research appeared more and more solitary and independent.Carandente, Giovanni (2007). "Burri: memories of a friendship, 1948–1988". In Palumbo, Piero (2007). Burri, Una Vita. Milan: Electa. p. 177
Sacchi and the American emergence Starting in 1952 Burri achieved a strong, personal characterization with the Sacchi (Sacks), artworks directly obtained from jute fabric widely distributed by the Marshall Plan: color almost entirely disappeared, leaving space for the surface material so that painting coincide with its matter in its total autonomy, as it was no more separation between painting surface and its form.Serafini, Giuliano (2015). Burri matter first. Milan: Giunti. p.44: "Canvas, in the humble version of jute, the favorite support in every epoch, was no longer merely the material in which to paint, but the painting itself, the work. In a word, matter became the subject."
The formal artistic elegance and the spatial balances obtained through aeroform steams, craters, rips, overlapping color layers and different forms, differentiated Burri's art, founded on attentive reflections and precise calculations, from the impulsive gestures that characterized Action painting during the same period.Tomassoni, Italo (2016). "Burri, de Kooning, Pollock: Parallel Convergences". In Corà, Bruno (ed.) Burri Lo spazio di materia tra Europa e USA. Città di Castello: Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri. p.50.
Burri offered an initial view of these peculiar elements in 1949, with SZ1 (acronym for Sacco di Zucchero 1 meaning Sack of Sugar, 1): the presence of a portion of the American flag contained in the artwork anticipated the use of the same subject made by pop art. In Burri's case, however, there were no social or symbolic implications, the painting's formal and chromatic balance being the only real focus.Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn (1997). "Alberto Burri, The Surface at Risk", in Tolomeo, Maria Grazia, Christov-Bakargiev, Carolyn. Burri Retrospektive, 1915–1995. Milan: Electa. Exhibition catalogue. p.83
Censorship and success Burri's Sacchi did not win the public's understanding and were instead considered as extremely far from the notion of art. In 1952, year of his first participation at the Venice Biennale exhibition, the Sacks titled Lo Strappo (The Rip) and Rattoppo (Patch) were rejected.Sarteanesi, Chiara (2016). "The Seasons of Burri". In Corà, Bruno (ed.) Burri Lo spazio di materia tra Europa e USA. Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri. Città di Castello. p.29: "The rules [of black and whites section of Biennale] stated that the works had to be done purely in pencil or lead point. Burri replaced the two paintings with the relative "Studio per lo Strappo" and "Disegno per Rattoppo", one of the rare case in which the artwork precedes the study, produced at a later date. "Studio per Lo Strappo" was purchased by Lucio Fontana, the only major recognition received by the Umbrian master on this occasion."
Again, in 1959 a point of order of the Italian Parliament asked for the removal of one of the painter's works from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.
Burri's work received a different and positive consideration in 1953, when James Johnson Sweeney (director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) discovered Burri's paintings at the Obelisco Gallery in Rome, and subsequently introduced the artist's work to the United States, in a collective exhibition representative of the new European artistic tendencies.Fontanella, Megan (2015)."Begun Behind Barbed Wire: Alberto Burri's Early Career in America". In Braun, Emily. Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting. New York: Gugghenheim Museum Publications. pp.92–112. This encounter subsequently led to a life-long friendship with Sweeney becoming an active a proponent of Burri's art in leading American Museums and writing the very first monograph about the artist in 1955. During the same year Robert Rauschenberg visited the painter's studio two times: despite the linguistic differences between the two artists prevented them to talking to each other, Rauschenberg's visits provided substantial input for the creation of his Combine Paintings.Celant, Germano (1994). "Burri vs Rauschenberg". In Celant (Germano), & Costantini (Anna). Rome New York 1948–1964 : an Art Exploration. The Murray and Isabella Rayburn Foundation, New York, 5 Nov – 10 January. Exhibition catalog. Milan: Charta. p. 22. Serafini, Giuliano (2015). p. 27: "His objective, from the very first hour was always and only to perform a healing act. The humblest material which Rauschenberg was to use in the combine paintings as a social signal, in an explicitly 'new Dada' function, and Arte Povera in an intellectually 'poverty-stricken' manner – was 'redeemed' by Burri through aesthetic means, becoming instrumental to the attainment of a inevitable, entirely necessary goal of beauty."Diacono, Mario (2016). "Burri and/or America: the Ground Zero of painting", in Corà, Bruno (ed.) Burri Lo spazio di materia tra Europa e USA. Città di Castello: Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri. p.50.