From abstraction to matter Once Burri returned to Italy on 27 February 1946, his decision collided with the severe post–World War II recession and his parents' dissatisfaction. He moved to Rome as a guest of the violinist and composer Annibale Bucchi, his mother's cousin, who encouraged his activity as a painter. While in Rome, he had the chance of establishing a contact with the few but very active institutions dedicated to painting, which were creating a new platform for visual arts after the war. He remained a reserved artist, ceaselessly working and creating, initially in a small studio in
Via Margutta but frequently moving out. As a matter of fact,
Milton Gendel – an American journalist who visited Burri's studio in 1954 –, later reported: "''The studio is thick-walled, whitewashed, neat and ascetic; his work is 'blood and flesh', reddened torn fabric that seems to parallel the staunching of wounds that Burri experienced in wartime''.” Burri's first solo figurative artworks exhibition took place on 10 July 1947 at the gallery-cum-bookshop La Margherita, in Rome, presented by the poets
Leonardo Sinisgalli and Libero De Libero. However, Burri's artistic production flowed definitively into abstract forms before the end of the same year, the use of small format
tempera resulting from the influence of such artists as
Jean Dubuffet and
Joan Miró, whose studio was visited by Burri during a trip to Paris in the winter of 1948.
Tars, Molds, Hunchbacks Burri's artistic research became personal in a short time, between 1948 and 1950 he began experimenting with using unusual, 'unorthodox' materials such as
tar,
sand,
zinc,
pumice, and
Aluminium dust as well as
Polyvinyl chloride glue, this last material being elevated to the same importance as oil colors. During this artistic transition, the painter showed his sensitivity to the mixed-media type of abstraction of
Enrico Prampolini, a central figure in Italian
Abstract art. Nonetheless Burri went one step further in his
Catrami (Tars), presenting tar not as a simple
collage material, but as an actual color which – by way of different lucid and opaque shades in monochrome black– blended itself with the totality of the painting. His 1948 "Nero 1" (Black 1) was later taken by the artist as initial milestone of his painting and established the prevalence of the black monochrome, which will be maintained as close identity throughout his career, alongside white, since
Bianchi (Whites) 1949–50 series, and red. The following series of
Muffe (Molds) literally presented the spontaneous reactions of the materials employed, enabling matter to 'come to life' in drippings and concretions which reproduced the effects and appearance of real
mold. In some artworks of the same period which he called
Gobbi (Hunchbacks), Burri focused on the painting's spatial interaction, achieving another original outcome due to the incorporation of tree branches on the rear of the canvas which pushed two-dimensionality towards
three-dimensional space. In 1949 the critic
Christian Zervos published the photo of a
Catrame (exhibited in Paris the previous year) in the renowned
Cahiers d'art. Sacchi and the American emergence Starting in 1952 Burri achieved a strong, personal characterization with the
Sacchi (Sacks), artworks directly obtained from
jute fabric widely distributed by the
Marshall Plan: color almost entirely disappeared, leaving space for the surface material so that painting coincide with its
matter in its total autonomy, as it was no more separation between painting surface and its form. The formal artistic elegance and the spatial balances obtained through aeroform steams, craters, rips, overlapping color layers and different forms, differentiated Burri's art, founded on attentive reflections and precise calculations, from the impulsive gestures that characterized
Action painting during the same period. Burri offered an initial view of these peculiar elements in 1949, with
SZ1 (acronym for
Sacco di Zucchero 1 meaning Sack of Sugar, 1): the presence of a portion of the
American flag contained in the artwork anticipated the use of the same subject made by
pop art. In Burri's case, however, there were no social or symbolic implications, the painting's formal and chromatic balance being the only real focus.
Censorship and success Burri's
Sacchi did not win the public's understanding and were instead considered as extremely far from the notion of art. In 1952, year of his first participation at the
Venice Biennale exhibition, the Sacks titled
Lo Strappo (The Rip) and
Rattoppo (Patch) were rejected. Again, in 1959 a point of order of the
Italian Parliament asked for the removal of one of the painter's works from the
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. This encounter subsequently led to a life-long friendship with Sweeney becoming an active a proponent of Burri's art in leading American Museums and writing the very first monograph about the artist in 1955. During the same year
Robert Rauschenberg visited the painter's studio two times: despite the linguistic differences between the two artists prevented them to talking to each other, Rauschenberg's visits provided substantial input for the creation of his
Combine Paintings. Burri's strong relationship with the United States became official when he met Minsa Craig (1928–2003), an American ballet dancer (student of
Martha Graham) and choreographer whom he married on 15 May 1955 in
Westport, Connecticut. They stuck together through thick and thin, for the rest of their lives.
Adoption of fire After a few sporadic attempts, in 1953–54 Burri conducted a carefully planned experimentation with fire, through small combustions on paper, which served as illustrations for a book of poems by
Emilio Villa. The poet was one of the first to understand the painter's revolutionary artistic potential, writing about it since 1951 and working with him to artist's books. He later recalled a common visit to an oil field (for a 1955 reportage for the magazine "Civiltà delle Macchine") as a strong influence for the artist's interest on the use of fire.
Combustions, Woods, Irons, Plastics The procedure adopted for the
Combustioni (Combustions) passed from paper to the
Legni (Woods) around 1957, in thin sheets of wood veneer fastened to canvas and other supports. In the same period Burri was also working on the
Ferri (Irons), creations made out of metal sheets cut, and welded by
Blow torch, to aim the general balance of the elements. The best known application of this procedure was reached in the
Plastiche (Plastics) during the Sixties, when a gradual critic openness towards Burri's art showed up in Italy as well. in 2023 The blowtorch was only apparently a destructive device. Indeed, the craters modeled by the flame on cellophane, black, red or transparent plastic or on the
Bianchi Plastica (White Plastic) series, in which the transparent plastic is laid on a white or black support, were lightly directed by the painter's blowing. The balances of the matter were thus highlighted once again, in a sort of 'defiance' towards of flame's randomness on the one hand, and in a sort of attempt to 'dominate chance', intrinsic to Burri's philosophy, on the other.
From Cretto to Cellotex From 1963 on, Burri and his wife started spending their winters in Los Angeles. The painter progressively detached himself from the city's artistic community, deeply focusing on his own work. During his recurrent trips to
Death Valley National Park, the artist found in the natural cracking of the desert the visual spur which led him, starting from 1973, to create
Cretti (Cracks) developing the use of the crackled paint effect of his 1940's artworks. Employing a special mixture of kaolin, resins and pigment, the painter dried its surface with the heat of an oven. Burri arrested the heating process at the desired moment using a PVA glue layer, thus obtaining greater and lesser cracking effects, which were always balanced thanks to the painter's extensive knowledge of chemistry.
Grande Cretto at Gibellina Burri reproduced the procedure used for the
Cretti, either black or white, also in sculpture, on large extensions in the
University of California, Los Angeles and Naples (
Museo di Capodimonte)
Grandi Cretti (Large Cracks) made of baked clay (both 49 x 16) and, most importantly, in the vast cement covering of the
Cretto di Burri at
Gibellina, upon the ruins of the old small Sicilian town destroyed by the 1968 earthquake. Began in 1984 and interrupted in 1989, the work was completed in 2015, for the artist's centenary of birth. It is one of the largest works of art ever realized, extending over an area of approximately 85,000 square meters. Its white concrete covering expands over the town, following the old street map in long arterial roads and corridors, which are walkable, thus symbolically bringing the devastated town back to life.
Cellotex and the large cycles of paintings During the Seventies Burri's art saw a gradual transition towards wider dimensions, while retrospectives followed one another around the world. The great solo exhibition crossing the United States in 1977–78 and ending at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is one example. In the 1979 cycle of paintings called
Il Viaggio (The Journey) Burri retraced, through ten monumental compositions, the key moments of his artistic production. The privileged material during this phase is Celotex (the author added an
l to its name), an industrial mixture of wood production scraps and adhesives, very often used in the making of insulating boards. Up to then, the painter had used this material in his previous works since the early 1950s as a support for his acetate and acrylic works. After that Cellotex was used for cyclical series conceived as
polyptych on a dominant and clear geometrical structure, through extremely thin scratched shades or juxtapositions of smooth and rough portions like
Orsanmichele (1981), or in black monochromes variations like
Annottarsi (Up to Nite, 1985), as well as in multicolored forms like
Sestante (
Sextant, 1983) or the homage to the gold of
Ravenna mosaics in his last
Nero e Oro (Black and Gold) series. ==Sculpture and set design==