Giorgio Griffa

Born in 1936 in Torino, Giorgio Griffa was trained as a traditional painter. Working alongside Giovanni Anselmo, Gilberto Zorio, Giulio Paolini, Mario and Marisa Merz in the mid-1960s in Torino, Griffa started painting abstract works in 1968. Though never fully affiliated with Arte Povera, Pittura Analatica or Minimalism, Griffa draws from the movements emphasis on economy of means, radicality and seriality, reducing his processes to their essential elements (raw unstretched canvases, color, and brushstrokes).

A major figure of the Italian post-war art scene, Griffa was part of the São Paulo Bienal in 1977 and the Venice Biennale in 1978, 1980, and 2017.