Bice LAZZARI (b. 1900, Venice - d. 1981, Rome) was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Italian art and a pioneering force in European abstraction. Often referred to as the “Agnes Martin of Italy,” Lazzari defied the gendered societal norms of her era to emerge as a central figure within the post-war avant-garde. Throughout a prolific career spanning six decades, she navigated a sophisticated evolution across paintings, collages, and textiles, masterfully bridging the gap between the decorative arts and high modernism.

Born in Venice, Lazzari began her career in the 1920s, initially achieving distinction in the decorative arts. Following her relocation to Rome in 1935, she secured prestigious commissions from architectural icons Gio Ponti and Carlo Scarpa. However, by the 1950s, she returned exclusively to the canvas, exploring the tactile, gestural language of Informalism. Her 1964 transition to acrylic paint marked a definitive shift toward hard-edge abstraction and a minimalist “poetry of the line.” Remarkably, despite suffering from near-blindness in her later years, Lazzari continued to produce rhythmic, essentialist works using only black and red pencils.

Her legacy has been solidified through major solo retrospectives at institutions including currently the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome (February 10 to May 3, 2026), which follows retrospectives at the Palazzo Citterio, Brera (2025), the Estorick Collection, London (2022), Ca’ Pesaro, Venice (2022), and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2011). She has also been a cornerstone of significant global surveys of women in abstraction, including Beyond Forms at Turner Contemporary (2024), Action, Gesture, Paint at the Whitechapel Gallery (2023), and Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou (2022).