Agostino Bonalumi

Born in 1935 in Vimercate, Italy; dies in 2013 in Milan, Italy.
After technical-mechanical studies, he attends the studio of Enrico Baj where he meets Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani. In the 1960s and 1970s he becomes one of the main exponents of the conception of art akin to the “shaped canvas”, as the contemporary American experiences in which the surfaces of the canvas are shaped with wooden supports. He has his first personal exhibition in 1956 at the Galleria Totti in Milan; in 1958, also in Milan, he exhibits at the Galleria Pater with Castellani and Manzoni. In 1961, in the Gallery Kasper of Lausanne, he is one of the founders of the group New European School. Among the numerous exhibitions, he participates at the Venice Biennale (1966, 1970 with a personal room and 1986), Biennale of Sao Paulo (1966), Paris Biennale (1968) and Quadrennial of Rome (1986, 1999). Moreover; he exhibits in 1981 with Dorazio, Rotella and Santomaso in the exhibition Italian Art Contemporary Four Directions at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale in Florida and, in 2001, the Collective Materia / Niente at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice. Among his solo shows, Arturo Schwarz Gallery in Milan (1965), the Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund (1968) – for which he makes the painting Grande Nero – Palace Museums in Modena (1974) curated by Giulio Carlo Argan, Palazzo Te in Mantua curated by Flavio Caroli and Dorfles (1980), the Guggenheim Museum in Venice (2000) – which presents historical works and the Environment White – and the Institut Mathildenhöe Darmstadt (2003-2004). In 2001, he is awarded the Premio del Presidente della Repubblica for painting. In the same year the National Academy of San Luca organises his solo exhibition and elects him as academician.