Bice Lazzari was one of the most innovative Italian abstractionists of the 20th century. Described as the 'Agnes Martin of Italy', she was largely unknown outside her country of birth, despite her significant contributions to Abstract and Minimal art. Lazzari began her training in Venice during the 1920s. As a woman, she was advised not to pursue figurative drawing and to become a designer. In 1935 Lazzari moved to Rome, then the centre of the Italian art scene, and started to receive commissions from Gio Ponti and Carlo Scarpa. In the 1950s, she returned to painting, creating abstract compositions that encompassed the gestural techniques of informalism. Lazzari worked with oil paint until 1964, when she was forced to stop due to the damaging effects to her eyes. Forced to retrain with a new medium – acrylic paint – she turned to hard-edge abstraction, making some of the most important works of her career towards the last fifteen years of her life.
Important solo exhibitions include Bice Lazzari: Modernist Pioneer, Estorick Collection, London, UK (2022); Bice Lazzari: La Poetica del Segno, Museo del Novecento, Florence, Italy (2019); Bice Lazzari. The Poetry of Mark-Making, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA (2018); Bice Lazzari, S|2 Gallery, London, UK (2018); Themes & Variations, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy (2011); Bice Lazzari: Signature Line, National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Washington, D.C., USA (2002). Notable group exhibitions include Action, Gesture, Paint, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2023); Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction 1950-1970, Turner Contemporary, London, UK (2023); Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, touring to Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain (2021-22); Still life in 20th century Italy, Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art, Luxembourg (2005); Art and Power. Europe under the dictators 1930-1945, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (1995) and others.
Her work is included in notable private and public collections worldwide.