Umberto Pettinicchio - Black Head

The work draws on an Informal aesthetic language. The devastation wrought by World War II left a profound mark on Western civilization, which in the visual arts also resulted in an inability to communicate. For some artists, this challenge led to a complete rejection of any visual language, resulting in the birth of Informal Art. The various Informal movements are certainly connected to American Abstract Expressionism, especially with regard to the gestural component, but they go further in their rejection of any figurative element, even geometric. Their research focuses instead on the gestures and materials with which their works are composed.

Artist Umberto Pettinicchio often explored the human figure in his pictorial research, which initially led him to adopt an expressionist style. His painting subsequently became increasingly abstract, ultimately moving toward Informalism. Only a vaguely discernible semblance of the figure remains, while, formally, everything is transformed by the artist's pictorial gestures. Pettinicchio's gestures break down the dimensional planes and transform the human figure into a shapeless substance marked by thick black strokes. Pettinicchio's approach seems like a sort of brutalist approach along the lines of Dubuffet, but while the Frenchman emphasized the material, our artist resolves everything through the paint.

Umberto Pettinicchio was born in Torremaggiore in 1943. He trained in Milan at the Brera Academy and began exhibiting in his first solo shows in 1969. These include appearances at the Nuova Sfera, Milan, 1973 (introduced by Carlo Munari) and 1977, at the Trittico, Rome, 1974, and at Il Castello, Milan, 1975 (introduced by Raffaele De Grada). In 1976, he opened a studio on Via Bolzano, where he created important series of paintings. In the 1980s, the course of exhibitions remained regular (at the Salotto, Como, 1980, at Il Castello, Milan, 1981, at Il Mercante, Milan, 1982) and was also enriched by important Spanish exhibitions (Sargadelos, Barcelona, ​​1982, Piquio, Santander, 1982, at the VIII Madrid Biennial, 1983).

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