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Lucio Fontana

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Lucio Fontana was born in 1899 in Rosario de Sante Fe, Argentina. His father, Luigi Fontana, was an Italian sculptor with a studio in Milan. Luigi brought his son to Milan in 1905 to attend school and Lucio began working as an apprentice in his father's studio at age ten. After serving in the First World War, Lucio opened his own studio in Argentina and later returned to Milan in 1928. In Italy, Lucio participated in several exhibitions and competitions including the Milan Triennial, Venice Biennial and Rome Quadrennial. Fontana moved back to Argentina in 1940 and in 1946, he founded a private art school called the Academy of Altamira, which was to become an important centre for the promotion of culture. It was here that, in constant contact with young artists and intellectuals, he formulated his theories on art that led to the publication of his "Manifesto Blanco," which called for art that would embrace science and technology and make use of such things as neon light, radio and television. Fontana began to puncture canvases with holes in the late 1940s and created his most famous series, Concetti spaziali, where he cut through the canvas to create an actual dimension of space in 1958.

Lucio Fontana died in 1968 in Comabbio, Italy. The Guggenheim Museum in New York honored his death with a retrospective exhibition in 1977.