Luigi Malice (born 1937,

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, Italy) is an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

abstract artist.

Biography

Malice studied at Naples Academy of Fine Arts as a pupil of Emilio Notte, later studying under

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

and ''Informal Art'' painter

Domenico Spinosa Domenico is an Italian given name for males and may refer to: People * Domenico Alfani, Italian painter * Domenico Allegri, Italian composer * Domenico Alvaro, Italian mobster * Domenico Ambrogi, Italian painter * Domenico Auria, Italian ar ...

. He began as an expressionist and figurative painter in the late 1950s, his then style demonstrated by his painting "Still life with figure" for which he received the ''Michetti Prize'', and "Ricordo di Spagna" ("Memory of Spain") which Malice exhibited for the ''Posillipo Prize''. In the early 60's, he approached the '' Arte Informale'', an Italian art movement close to the American

Abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

and to the French

Art Informel Informalism or Art Informel () is a pictorial movement from the 1943–1950s, that includes all the abstract and gestural tendencies that developed in France and the rest of Europe during the World War II, similar to American abstract express ...

Tachisme __NOTOC__ Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain; ) is a French style of Abstract art, abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the ...

. In 1963, Malice became a teacher in Reggio

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, where he exhibited in collective and one-man shows, and in 1967 exhibited at the Flaccovio Gallery in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

and the Santo Stefano Gallery in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. After 1968, he concentrated on sculpture, and works consisting of waterproof cloth ("tela ciriè") on twisted

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

, imitating shaped canvases, these related to the work of his contemporaries

Enrico Castellani Enrico Castellani (4 August 1930 – 1 December 2017) was an Italian artist. He was active in Italy from the early 1960s, and associated with Piero Manzoni and . From 1959 he made monochromatic geometric relief (art), reliefs using nails from a n ...

, Agostino Bonalumi, and Pino Pascali, but also to wooden silhouettes of men of

Mario Ceroli Mario Ceroli (born 1938) is an Italian sculptor. Biography His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Mississippi. One of his sculptures is on the Luigi Einaudi campus o ...

, and in the early 1970s constructed works with ready-made

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bra ...

panels. Malice exhibited in 1968 at the

New York Coliseum The New York Coliseum was a convention center that stood at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, from 1956 to 2000. It was designed by architects Leon Levy and Lionel Levy in a modified International Style, and included both a low buil ...

, and in 1984, held a

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

exhibition in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. Subsequently, his art took on

abstract impressionism Abstract impressionism is an art movement that originated in New York City, in the 1940s.Eduoard Malingue Gallery. ''Impressionism to Modern Art.'' Hong Kong: Eduard Malingue Gallery, 2011. 10. It involves the painting of a subject such as real- ...

and ''lyrism'' of the colours. The same year he became the principal of the Academy of Fine Arts, Reggio, Calabria. Malice exhibited at the Institute Francais "Le Grenoble" in Naples, and in a travelling exhibition that included Venice and

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. In 1992, he presented a one-man show, "Percorsi 1965–1992" ("Itineraries 1965–1992"), at the Royal Palace,

. Since 2001, his work "Metamorphosis 1979" has been held in the '' Museo delle generazioni italiane'',

Pieve di Cento Pieve di Cento ( Bolognese: ; "parish of Cento") is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about north of Bologna. History The origins of the town date back to the upper ...

. Recently the artist has exhibitedhis work at the Italian pavilion of the 54th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

.Sgarbi, Vittorio. "54a Biennale di Venezia. Padiglione Italia. Lo Stato dell’Arte: Regioni d’Italia", Milano: Skira, 2012, .

References

External links

Luigi Malice web site biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malice, Luigi Italian contemporary artists Art Informel and Tachisme painters 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian sculptors 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male sculptors 21st-century Italian sculptors 1937 births Living people 21st-century Italian male artists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links