Piero Dorazio

1927 - 2005

Piero Dorazio was an Italian painter associated with color field painting and lyrical abstraction. He was born in Rome in 1927 and studied architecture at the University of Rome. He was influenced by futurists such as Gino Severini and Giacomo Balla, as well as left-leaning artists like Renato Guttuso. In 1947, he helped establish a group of abstract artists called Forma I. Dorazio won a prize to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1947 and later moved to New York City in 1953. He taught painting at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design from 1960 to 1969 and returned to Rome in 1970. Dorazio's paintings typically feature thick bands of bright color and crosshatched grids, and his style is in line with Post-painterly abstraction. He continued to work and exhibit until 2004.