Alberto Burri

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Grande Ferro Celle in the Villa Celle sculpture park

Alberto Burri (born March 12, 1915 in Città di Castello , † February 13, 1995 in Nice ) was an Italian artist who became internationally known for his material images.

life and work

Alberto Burri was born in Città di Castello in Italy in 1915. He first studied medicine and specialized in tropical medicine, as he planned to emigrate to Africa. He received his PhD from the University of Perugia in 1940 . During the Second World War he worked as a doctor. As a prisoner of war he came to the Hereford, Texas camp , where he began to paint to pass the time. After the end of the war and in view of his experiences with injuries, injuries and dying, he gave up the medical profession and became an artist.

The subjects of his art were his war experiences. He used materials that reflected this. Burri was famous for his collages and assemblages of materials made from scraps of cloth and sackcloth, rusty nails and scorched wood. He used melted plastic, welded plastic, scraps of linen and other materials and put them together to create new compositions . His pictures and collages reflected subjective feelings and were his own interpretation in the Informel style .

Alberto Burri lived and worked in Rome from 1945 . A first solo exhibition took place in 1947 in the Galleria La Margherita in Rome. In 1954 his work was shown in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York , in 1955 he was a participant in the VII Quadriennale in Rome . His art found national and international recognition and was shown at home and abroad. Between 1958 and 1995, Burri war took part in the Venice Biennale seven times and in the documenta in Kassel three times . In 1973 he was awarded an Antonio Feltrinelli Prize . In 1994 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Monument in Gibellina Vecchia

In 1981, Alberto Burri created a huge monument over Gibellina Vecchia, the ruins of the old historical part of the Italian city of Gibellina in Sicily: the ruins were buried under a thick layer of concrete , which has cuttings that can be walked on, to make the narrow streets of the old streets even more narrow to be able to understand.

Alberto Burri died at the age of 79 on February 13, 1995 in Nice in the south of France.

Exhibitions (selection)

Works in museums

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Honorary Members: Alberto Burri. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 7, 2019 .
  2. ^ Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting. October 9, 2015 – January 6, 2016 ( Memento from December 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Burri, Alberto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Città di Castello , Italy
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1995
Place of death Nice , France