Roberto Crippa

Plate III from Suns/Landscapes - Etching by R. Crippa - 1971/72

1971/72

The painter-sculptor Roberto Crippa was born in Milan in 1921. He studied at the Brera Art Academy in Milan where he was the fellow student of Aldo Carpi, Achille Funi and Carlo Carrá.

At the beginning of his career, like lots of young painters of his generation, Roberto Crippa was influenced by neo-Cubism. His first solo exhibition was at the Bergamini Gallery in Milan in 1947.

The artist was one of the first in Italy to practice gestural painting, which can be seen in his sharply colored spiral webs (ca. 1948–52). In 1948, Crippa became one of the founding members of the Spacialist group, a group founded around Lucio Fontana, whose objective was to search for a new spatial representation by technical means that was resolutely modern. At the same time, Crippa began to participate regularly in group exhibitions and, notably, the Biennale of Venice.

Later he devoted himself to what the artist called "Collages," cut-out forms that animate static surfaces. Crippa played with the effects of matter on rough, thick surfaces such as wood or bark as well as with plant elements on smooth, shiny metal or on transparent elements. His research naturally led him toward sculpture and from 1956 onward he constructed numerous cut-out, welded metal works of insects and monsters that are in line with the work of Lynn Chadwick. Crippa was interested in movement in space.

In parallel with his painting and sculpture, Roberto Crippa also experimented with graphic work (engravings, lithographs and illustrated books). During the mid-1960s, he moved toward monochrome reliefs, which he most often painted in tones of gray.

The artist died in a plane crash in 1972 in Bresso. He was 50 years old.

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(Biography provided by Galleria d'arte Pirra)