Piero Dorazio

Born in 1927 in Rome, Italy; dies in 2005 in Perugia, Italy.
After studying architecture, Dorazio focuses his attention on abstract art. Between 1946 and 1947 he participates in the Social Art Group with Perilli, Guerrini, Vespignani, Buratti, Muccini, and collaborates with Consagra, Turcato, Accardi and Sanfilippo for the first exhibitions of Forma 1. He travels to Paris with Guerrini, and meets French avant-garde artists. In 1950 he opens the gallery-library L’Age d’or with Perilli and Guerrini for spreading the abstract word. The following year he travels to the United Sates, where he meets De Kooning, Rotkho, Pollock and Barney Newman, he takes part in the International Summer Seminar at Harvard University and has a solo show at Wittenborn One-Wall Gallery in New York. Between 1960-1970 he directs the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1970 he curates the Rothko retrospective at Venice Biennale. In 1974 he moves to Todi (Italy). In the early 1980s he takes part in a remarkable exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, then in major American museums and finally at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. In 1985 and 1986 he exhibits in Tokyo and Osaka. Between 1993 and 1996 he develops the project on the realisation of fifty mosaics of international artists for the subway in Rome. In 2004 the Pinacoteca of Locarno dedicates him an important retrospective.