Ennio Finzi

1931 Italy

Ennio Finzi was born in Venice in 1931 and, very young, was interested in painting and music. It is stimulated by Atanasio Soldati, Virgilio Guidi, Emilio Vedova and cubism. Thus were born the first “inventions” in which rhythm, color, light, timbre take on the role of load-bearing elements and will become a basic constant of all his research. He began exhibiting in 1949 at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice where he held his first solo exhibition in 1956. Towards the end of the 1950s, marked by the shocking intuitions of Lucio Fontana whom Finzi met in Milan on the occasion of one of his exhibitions, the gestural turbulence and expressive urgency subsided and a more reflective dimension took over in the direction of overcoming the painting itself. Principlesof optical art they inform his research on optical suggestion until 1978. In 1986 he participates in the XLII Venice Art Biennale. He taught at the Venice Academy and still lives and works in Mes.