Pietro Consagra

Biography

  Consagra saw the ateliers of Brancusi, Picasso, and Giacometti on a visit to Paris.

He was a founder member of the Forma 1 group, which championed abstraction in the face of the Marxist realism. He was also involved in the organisation of the first exhibition of abstract art staged by the Art Club that year. The importance of his work as Italy's leading abstract sculptor was recognised by one - man shows at the Venice Biennali in 1956, 1960 and 1972. In 1961, Consagra was one of the founders of the Continuità group, which continued the tradition of Forma 1. 

Consagra's earliest prints were portraits in drypoint, printed in the workshop at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Palermo in 1942. Two years later, he made his first etchings, a market scene, a print of frogs, and a seapiece influenced by Ensor. Consagra's next prints were fully abstract, a set of linocuts, E 'trascurabile esprimere se stesso', of 1949 (no. 104). In 1958 -59, Stamperia Ca' Giustinian in Venice printed some of his etchings, and, in 1959, the journal, 'XXe Siècle', published a woodcut.