Lucio Fontana: The Artist's Materials

Pia Gottschaller  Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative post–World War II Italian artists. Best known for his tagli—slashed, mostly monochromatic canvases—Fontana fashioned a remarkably multifaceted oeuvre that encompasses architecture, sculpture, and ceramics, as well as painting. In his quest to expand the vocabulary of his art, Fontana subjected the pictorial surface of his paintings to a remarkable assortment of punctures, gashes, and slashes, as well as adornments of glass fragments, glittering aluminum flakes, and sand. This richly illustrated book, the third in the Getty Conservation Institute's Artist's Materials series, presents the first technical study in English of this important painter. Initial chapters present an informative overview of Fontana's life and work. Subsequent chapters examine the nine major cycles of work on canvas that constitute his most important achievement, focusing on the physical genesis of these l