Giorgio Griffa (b. in Turin, 1936). He began painting as a child, taking lessons from local painters at the Circolo degli Artisti in Turin. After completing a degree in law in 1958, Griffa became a practicing lawyer.
In the sixties, Griffa began working as an assistant to the Italian painter Filippo Scroppo, a member of the MAC (Art Concreta Movement) and a teacher at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. In 1968, Giorgio Griffa abandoned figurative painting in favor of an abstract painting that still characterizes his work to this day.”Despite early associations with movements such as Arte Povera and Minimalism, Giorgio Griffa’s work was not exhibited in the United States for 40 years after his first solo exhibition in New York at Ileana Sonnabend’s gallery. In 2012, he had a solo exhibition – “Fragments 1968 – 2012” at Casey Kaplan gallery in New York. Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times: “His art deserves a place in the world history of abstractions”. leading him to be named one of the “10 thrilling rediscoveries from 2012.
Giorgio Griffa exhibited first at Martano (1968), Sperone (1969), Sonnabend gallery in New York in 1970 and participated in important international exhibitions such as Prospekt, Düsseldorf (1969 and 1974) and the Venice Biennale (1978 and 1980 with a solo room, 2017). Other important early exhibitions include Processes of Visualized Thought: Young Italian Avant-garde, Kunstmuseum Luzern (1970) Painting Exhibition of Painters who Place Painting in Question, curated by Michel Claura, Stadtische Museum, Monchengladbach (1973).
Among the most recent personal shows are those at MACRO in Rome in 2011, at the Mies Van der Rohe Haus in Berlin in 2012, at Trinity College Dublin in 2014, at the Centre Art Contemporain in Geneva in 2015, at the Kunsthalle in Bergen 2015, at the Giuliani Foundation in Rome in 2016, at the Fondation Vincent Van Gogh in Arles in 2016, at the Serralves Museum in Porto in 2016, at the Camden Arts Centre in London in 2018, and the one now close to the Lille Museum. His works are in the most prestigious private and institutional collections, in Italy and abroad. In 2013 the Tate acquired the large canvas Horizontal Signs, for its permanent collection display.