Dorazio Piero

Piero Dorazio was born in Rome in 1927. He studied at the classical high school and frequented the painter's studio Bandinelli where he began to paint landscape scenes and still lifes and then moved on to cubist-inspired works. In 1947 he was among the founders of the group Form 1 with Carla Accardi, Hold on, Consagra, Guerrini, Sanfilippo, Perilli e Turcato. The group follows the trend of abstractionism and moves in opposition to the social function of art carried out by a group of artists including Guttuso, Sassu and other. At the beginning of the 1950s Dorazio opened the “L'Age d'Or” gallery with Perilli and Guerrini with the intention of making it an exhibition venue for avant-garde artists. In 1953 he was invited by the University of Harvard for a seminar on art and humanism. Participate in the Venice Biennale in 1956, 1958 and 1960 with a staff room. He went to the United States where he was appointed to direct the fine arts department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he remained for ten years. In 1962 he joined the Zero Group participating in all the group's collective exhibitions. Invited to Berlin byGerman Academy he settled there for six months, participating in the rebellious ferment of the student movement. Starting from the seventies he made numerous trips, to the Middle East and Africa in particular, then settling permanently in Todi in Umbria. In the meantime, his exhibition activity continues both in Italy and abroad, also taking an interest in scenography and artists' books. He actively participated in the cultural debate with interventions in the major Italian newspapers until his death in Perugia in 2005.