Bice LAZZARI Italian, 1900-1981
Untitled, 1967
Ink and crayon on paper
49.5 x 69.5cm
Bice LAZZARI (1900–1981) was one of the most influential figures in 20th Century Italian art and a pioneer of abstract art. During her long and prolific career, she produced paintings,...
Bice LAZZARI (1900–1981) was one of the most influential figures in 20th Century Italian art and a pioneer of abstract art. During her long and prolific career, she produced paintings, collages, textiles and works on paper exploring the aesthetics of Informalism, Minimalism and Abstraction.
Born in Venice in 1900, Lazzari challenged societal norms, emerging as a visionary force within post-war Italian art in the 1920s. After relocating from Venice to Rome in 1935, she received numerous prestigious decorative arts commissions, but eventually returned to painting in the 1950s, creating abstract compositions that incorporated gestural techniques of Informalism. Her transition to acrylic paint in 1964 marked a groundbreaking exploration of hard-edge abstraction. Despite experiencing near-blindness later in life, Lazzari persisted in producing works using only two pencils-black and red.
Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in major museums including Museo Novecento, Florence (2019) and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2011). She was featured in important institutional group exhibitions dedicated to women in abstaction, including 'Action, Gesture, Paint' at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2023-24, touring), 'Women in Abstraction' at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021-22, touring) and 'Beyond Forms: Lines of Abstraction' at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2024). In 2022, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London and Ca' Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice both dedicated major solo exhibitions to her work.
Born in Venice in 1900, Lazzari challenged societal norms, emerging as a visionary force within post-war Italian art in the 1920s. After relocating from Venice to Rome in 1935, she received numerous prestigious decorative arts commissions, but eventually returned to painting in the 1950s, creating abstract compositions that incorporated gestural techniques of Informalism. Her transition to acrylic paint in 1964 marked a groundbreaking exploration of hard-edge abstraction. Despite experiencing near-blindness later in life, Lazzari persisted in producing works using only two pencils-black and red.
Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in major museums including Museo Novecento, Florence (2019) and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2011). She was featured in important institutional group exhibitions dedicated to women in abstaction, including 'Action, Gesture, Paint' at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2023-24, touring), 'Women in Abstraction' at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021-22, touring) and 'Beyond Forms: Lines of Abstraction' at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2024). In 2022, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London and Ca' Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice both dedicated major solo exhibitions to her work.