Tony Bevilacqua

Inspired by biomorphic forms and humankind’s “tortuous path towards self-awareness,” Gianfranco Meggiato creates inward-looking abstract sculptures that he calls “introsculptures.” 

Born in Venice, in 1963, Meggiato studied stone, bronze, wood and ceramic sculpture at the city’s Istituto Statale d’Arte. Influenced by such 20th-century masters as Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, Meggiato’s talent for sculpture captured the attention of artists and critics from his teens. “At the age of 16, I was invited to exhibit in a group show in St. Mark’s Square organized by the Municipality [of Venice] for emerging young artists,” he told Forbes magazine. “I presented my work Transenna in mild stone. Its interplay of solid and empty spaces, light and shadow already contained the seed of my future artistic research.”

The relationship between solid form and open space serves as the basis of Meggiato’s figurative and abstract sculptures. For instance, in his outsize bronze Cubo con Cubo (2016), a perfectly polished cube sits enmeshed in a geometric web. In his elegant Sera Sole (2020), a golden sphere sits in a nest of tangled bronze.

Since 1998, Meggiato has participated in numerous major exhibitions and art fairs throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. In 2011 and 2013, he was invited to join the Italian pavilions at the Venice Biennale. 

Recently, his monumental sculptures have been featured in public installations, including The Garden of the Silent Muses at Catanzaro, in 2017; The Spiral of Life at Manifesta 12 in Palermo, in 2018; the solo exhibition “Quantum Man: There is no Future without Memory” in Sicily, in 2021; and a revival of The Spiral of Life set up in 2022 by the Pecci Museum and Prato City Council. Meggiato’s installations won the ICOMOS-UNESCO Award. 

On 1stDibs, discover a range of Gianfranco Meggiato sculptures.

Beginning in the early 20th century, abstract art became a leading style of modernism. Rather than portray the world in a way that represented reality, as had been the dominating style of Western art in the previous centuries, abstract paintings, prints and sculptures are marked by a shift to geometric forms, gestural shapes and experimentation with color to express ideas, subject matter and scenes.

Although abstract art flourished in the early 1900s, propelled by movements like Fauvism and Cubism, it was rooted in the 19th century. In the 1840s, J.M.W. Turner emphasized light and motion for atmospheric paintings in which concrete details were blurred, and Paul Cézanne challenged traditional expectations of perspective in the 1890s.

Some of the earliest abstract artists — Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint — expanded on these breakthroughs while using vivid colors and forms to channel spiritual concepts. Painter Piet Mondrian, a Dutch pioneer of the art movement, explored geometric abstraction partly owing to his belief in Theosophy, which is grounded in a search for higher spiritual truths and embraces philosophers of the Renaissance period and medieval mystics. Black Square, a daringly simple 1913 work by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was a watershed statement on creating art that was free “from the dead weight of the real world,” as he later wrote.

Surrealism in the 1920s, led by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Meret Oppenheim and others, saw painters creating abstract pieces in order to connect to the subconscious. When Abstract Expressionism emerged in New York during the mid-20th century, it similarly centered on the process of creation, in which Helen Frankenthaler’s expressive “soak-stain” technique, Jackson Pollock’s drips of paint, and Mark Rothko’s planes of color were a radical new type of abstraction.

Conceptual art, Pop art, Hard-Edge painting and many other movements offered fresh approaches to abstraction that continued into the 21st century, with major contemporary artists now exploring it, including Anish Kapoor, Mark Bradford, El Anatsui and Julie Mehretu.

Find original abstract paintings, sculptures, prints and other art on 1stDibs.

If you’re thinking about decorating your space with abstract sculpture, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

You don’t have to look for a piece that demands attention. Find a work of abstract sculpture that speaks to you. As is the case with any abstract art, whether it’s sculpture, an abstract painting or a grouping of prints, you can select a work for your living room or dining room, for example, that will either casually fade into the background or serve as a focal point. When you’re thinking about how to arrange your furniture and decor, consider color, texture and what kind of energy you’d like a specific room or corner to evoke. Abstract sculpture can go a long way in elevating a home, and its history is interesting if you’re shopping for a new piece today.

As a pioneer in naturalistic forms and figures that vividly express emotion, Auguste Rodin is often called the father of modern sculpture. His work in the 19th and early 20th century broke with artistic conventions and inspired modernism, leading to a new period of avant-garde abstraction.

Among the first artists to push abstract sculpture into the mainstream were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They helped define the movement of Cubism, which focused on deconstructing the world abstractly.

Later in the 20th century, the artistic movements of Italian Futurism, Dadaism, Neo-Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and minimalism all contributed to the advancement of new and more abstract sculpture designs. Italian Futurism, for example, celebrated movement, dynamics and technology in abstract sculpture. These movements passed down ideas that continue to inform abstract sculpture today.

Browse a range of modern abstract sculptures, postmodern abstract sculptures and other kinds of sculpture on 1stDibs.