Alberto Burri

The Profile

Alberto Burri (1915–1995) was an Italian artist known for pioneering material painting with burlap sacks, tar, wood, plastics, Cellotex and the cracked “Cretti.” Trained as a physician and a WWII POW, he developed a radical language that reshaped postwar art, culminating in monumental works like the Grande Cretto at Gibellina.

Italian painter and sculptor (Città di Castello, 1915 – Nice, 1995). Trained as a physician; began painting as a WWII POW in Texas. Pioneered material painting (Sacchi, Combustioni, Legni, Ferri, Plastiche, Cretti, Cellotex). Created the Grande Cretto at Gibellina, one of the largest Land art works. Major collections are housed at Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri (Palazzo Albizzini and Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco) in Città di Castello.

Three reviews map Burri’s radical turn to plastics, cretti and Cellotex, from the Ex Seccatoi halls to the vast Cretto di Gibellina. Writers frame him as a classic, not just an iconoclast, and tie his ordered rigor to haunting themes of memory and death. Expect lyrical detours, Kafka echoes, and strong praise.