Mario Schifano

Mario Schifano was born in Italian Libya on September 20, 1934, precisely in Homs, where his father had moved as an employee of the Ministry of Education. Considered by many to be the leading exponent of Italian pop art, he is considered the heir of Andy Warhol. His performances remain memorable with the creation of paintings of enormous dimensions made with enamels and acrylics. Many of his works, the so-called “monochromes”, have only one or two colors, applied on wrapping paper pasted on canvas. The influence of Jasper Johns is manifested in the use of numbers or isolated letters of the alphabet, but in the way of painting similarities can be found with the work of Robert Rauschenberg. In a painting from 1960 you can read the word “no” painted with drips of color in large capital letters, as in a mural graffiti. Even today the works created in the sixties remain incredibly topical. Among the most important are the series dedicated to advertising brands, bicycles, flowers and nature in general. Passionate student of new painting techniques, he is among the first to use the computer to create works, managing to process images and bring them back on emulsified canvases. The author’s prolificacy, and the apparent simplicity of his works, led to the creation of an impressive number of fakes that flooded the markets, especially after his death. Passionate about cycling, he has designed the pink jersey twice. He died at the age of 64, after a life of excesses and irregularities: he experienced prison, because of drugs, an asylum, and attempted suicide. .