Roberto Crippa biography

Roberto Crippa was an Italian painter and sculptor. He was born in Monza on May 7, 1921. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera under the guidance of Aldo Carpi, Carlo Carrà, and Achille Funi. At the beginning of his painting career, he was influenced by neocubism and in 1947 held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Bergamini in Milan.
In 1950, he befriended Lucio Fontana and joined Spazialismo, which also included Gian Carozzi, Giorgio Kaisserlian, Beniamino Joppolo, Milena Milani, Sergio Dangelo, Carlo Cardazzo, Cesare Peverelli. During this period, he created the series of paintings known as Spirali, characterized by abstract and geometric elements in which the artist created convoluted spaces from which rays were ideally projected beyond the two-dimensionality of the canvas. In 1951, Roberto Crippa reached New York, where he met the surrealists Max Ernst, Victor Brauner, and Yves Tanguy and exhibited at the gallery of Alexander Iolas.
Between 1954 and 1956, the spirals evolved into heavier, more incisive, and involute forms, interwoven with each other, better known as Totems. From 1955, he dedicated himself to the production of the so-called Collages, or polymaterial paintings in which he initially used iron, bronze, and steel, and later cork, bark, and wood, inspired by a primitive symbolism. In 1956, he participated in the Venice Biennale as well as various group exhibitions in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Amsterdam, and Madrid.
In 1962, he was the victim of a flight accident that would confine him to a wheelchair for almost a year. After recovering from the accident, he began painting landscapes, Landscape, using the polymaterial technique and his usual abstract style. Also from this period are the Amiantiti, works created with thin sheets of asbestos applied to an engraved board.
Roberto Crippa died in 1972 when his plane crashed near Bresso airport during a training flight for the World Championships.