Pietro Consagra

Born in 1920 in Mazara del Vallo (Trapani), Pietro Consagra studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Palermo. In 1944, seeking closer engagement with the centre of contemporary artistic activity, he moved to Rome shortly after the city’s liberation by Allied forces. There, he formed connections with artists such as Giulio Turcato, Mario Mafai, and Renato Guttuso, briefly sharing a studio with them at Via Margutta 48. In 1947, he co-founded the Forma 1 Group alongside Carla Accardi, Ugo Attardi, Pietro Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo, and Giulio Turcato. The group’s manifesto – published in the first issue of Forma magazine in March 1947 – declared them “formalists and Marxists,” waging a battle against Picassian distortion and metaphysical romanticism in the name of pure abstraction. The group’s first exhibition took place that same year at the Art Club Gallery in Rome. Consagra’s early recognition came in 1949 when he exhibited alongside Jean Arp, Constantin Brâncuși, and Antoine Pevsner in the Mostra di Scultura Contemporanea at Peggy Guggenheim’s Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice

 

His international reputation grew in the mid-1950s: he received the Premio Metallurgica Matarazzo at the 1955 São Paulo Bienal, and at the 1956 Venice Biennale he was given the Premio Einaudi for sculpture. In 1959 he won the Prix de la Critique (Belgian Critics’ Prize) in Brussels, coinciding with the presentation of his work at Documenta II in Kassel that same year. Consagra was again honored at the Venice Biennale in 1960, where the international jury awarded him the Grand Prize for sculpture. Later career distinctions include the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for sculpture, bestowed by Rome’s Accademia dei Lincei in 1984. In 1989, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome) organized a major retrospective of Consagra’s work, cementing his legacy as a leading figure in postwar abstract sculpture.

 

His  solo shows include:  European Parliament, Strasbourg (2003); Lago Santa Susanna, Rome (1997); the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (1991); Marlborough Gerson Gallery, New York, and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1967); World House, New York; and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (1958).

 

His work also has been exhibited at: the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence (2022), and MAXXI, Rome (2022); the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis (2015); the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2012); and a major exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2011).