Eduarda Emilia Maino (2 October 1930 – 13 April 2004), known as Dadamaino, was an Italian

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

and painter. She was a member of the Milanese avant-garde of the 1960s.

Biography

Eduarda Emilia Maino, nicknamed "Dada" for Eduarda, was born 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 ...

, Italy. Dadamaino first completed a medical degree before taking up art at the end of the 1950s. She frequented a group of young artists who followed

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Italian Argentines, Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist. He is known as the founder of Spatialism and exponent of Abstract art, abstract painting as the f ...

and the

spatialism Spatialism () is an art movement founded by Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana in Milan in 1947 in which he proposed to synthesize colour, sound, space, movement, and time into a new type of art. Overview The main ideas of the movement were ...

movement. Members of the group included:

Piero Manzoni Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced ...

, Gianni Colombo,

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 ...

and Agostino Bonalumi. In 1958, Dadamaino produced a series of works called ''Volumi'', which were exhibited in her first solo show at the Galleria dei Bossi in

the same year. Shortly after, Dadamaino joined

Azimuth An azimuth (; from ) is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north, in a local or observer-centric spherical coordinate system. Mathematically, the relative position vector from an observer ( origin) to a point ...

, a group funded by Piero Manzoni, and the Germany-based Group

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...

formed by

Heinz Mack Heinz Mack (born 8 March 1931) is a German artist. Together with Otto Piene he founded the Zero (art), ZERO movement in 1957. He exhibited works at documenta in 1964 and 1977 and he represented Germany at the 1970 Venice Biennale. He is best k ...

Otto Piene Otto Piene (, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic art, kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and G ...

and

Günther Uecker Günther Uecker (; 13 March 1930 – 10 June 2025) was a German painter, sculptor, op artist, and installation artist. He became known primarily for his nail reliefs. In 1961, Uecker joined the Zero (art), ZERO group. Early life and education ...

. The following years brought important experiments, among them the occupation with color grading and interferences between 1966 and 1968. Dadamaino intensively examined the effects of spectral colors to which she added black, white and brown in order to interrelate them. In 1967, at the peak of this development, she made her well known "ricerca del colore", an "exploration of the color". In squared plates Dadamaino analyzes the reciprocal effect of color and form, by grading each color in light and dark shades and contrasting it in lamellar stripes, she creates motion in the observer's eye. These were works of special aesthetic and one of her most important period of creation. Dadamaino counted Lucio Fontana and

Yves Klein Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein wa ...

as major influences. Dadamaino's work was included in the 2021 exhibition ''

Women in Abstraction Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century or ''Elles font l'abstraction. Une autre histoire de l'abstraction au XXe siècle'' was a major exhibition of 20th century abstract art created by women. It was curated by ...

'' at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

Exhibitions

Dadamaino had two solo shows at the

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 (), ...

in 1980 and in 1990. * 1962 : Nul group exhibition, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands * 1983 : Retrospective, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy * 2000 : Retrospective, Bochum museum, Bochum, Germany * 2011 : "Volumes 1958-60", The Major Gallery, London, United Kingdom * 2013 : Dadamaino, Le Consortium, Dijon, France * 2013 : Dadamaino, Tornabuoni art, Paris, France * 2017 : Dadamaino, Mendes Gallery, New York * 2023 : Dadamaino 1930–2004, MA*GA, Gallarate

Collections

Dadamaino’s works can be seen in collections such as: *GAM, Turin *MART, Rovereto *

Museo del Novecento The Museo del Novecento ("museum of the twentieth century") is a museum of twentieth-century art in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arengario, near Piazza del Duomo in the centre of the city. The museum ...

, Milan * Museion, Bolzano *

Musée de Grenoble The Museum of Grenoble () is a municipal museum of Fine Arts and antiquities in the city of Grenoble in the Isère region of France. Located on the left bank of the Isère (river), Isère River, place Lavalette, it is known both for its collecti ...

, Grenoble *

, Paris * Hilti Art Foundation, Liechtenstein *

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, Philadelphia * Guggenheim, Venice * Kunstmuseum Reutlingen / konkret, Reutlingen

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dadamaino 1930 births 2004 deaths 20th-century Italian painters Italian contemporary artists Artists from Milan 20th-century Italian women painters