Thermoformed plastic multiple accompanied by the book "Enrico Castellani Pittore," published by Achille Mauri Editore, Milan, Italy.
Enrico Castellani is best known for canvases that alter perceptions of space through the manipulation of their surfaces. Castellani was born in Castelmassa, in the province of Rovigo, Italy, in 1930, and was trained as an architect at Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Cambre. After graduating in 1956, Castellani returned to Milan to work at the architecture studio of Franco Buzzi, with whom he collaborated until 1963, and where he launched his first artistic experiments, creating unprecedented and dynamic spatial experiences while using the traditional canvas, painting them monochromatically and stretching them over patterns of nails so that the canvases protruded and retracted across their surfaces.
Revered as one of the forerunners of Minimalism and Conceptualism, Castellani has consistently produced works that sensitize and liberate the surface of the painted canvas. Castellani was the 2010 recipient of the Praemium Imperiale for Painting, the first Italian artist ever to receive this honor.
Selected Public Collections:
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Trento
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK
Gallerie di Palazzo Leoni Montanari, Vicenza, Italy
GAM - Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin
Walker Art Center, Minnesota