Lovay Fine Arts is proud to present the first U.S. feature on the extraordinary journey of Italian artist Lucia di Luciano (b. 1933) within the field of abstraction.
This presentation celebrates the enduring creativity of the 93-year-old artist, tracing 62 years of her pioneering practice—from her early black-and-white radical geometrical abstractions (Arte Programmata) to her most recent boundless, liberated and free-spirited paintings.
Excerpt from the film “Lucia Di Luciano – Verificare l’Utopia” written and directed by Fabio Cherstich (@fabio_cherstich), edited by Igor Renzetti, with music by Oscar Pizzo.
Di Luciano, together with her late husband Giovanni Pizzo (1934–2022), was a pivotal figure in the Arte Programmata movement in the early 1960s (3 works shown on the booth). Emerging in the postwar era, the movement emphasized geometric abstraction as a universal visual language capable of transcending cultural and geographic boundaries. In Italy, the artists of Arte Programmata based their compositions on rules, programmed systems, or serial sequences, deliberately delegating authorship in order to challenge the traditional notion of the artist and explore art as a process. They collaborated with musicians, in particular with composer Pietro Grossi, a pioneer in computer-generated music. Di Luciano and Pizzo also initiated several collectives of artists in Rome, most notably Gruppo 63 and Operativo R.
Discontinuità ritmica in orizzontale e in verticale immagini in progressione, 1964. China ink and morgan’s paint on masonite. 73 × 73 cm (28 3/4 × 28 3/4 in)
Cromostruttura, 1979. Acrylic and China ink on masonite. 80 × 80 cm (31 1/2 × 31 1/2 in)
Following this formative period, in the 1970s through the 1990s, di Luciano gradually delved into color theories. While her foundational interest in structure and systems remained, she started to fully embrace color as a main component (1 work shown on the booth).
Beginning in the early 2000s, she moved beyond the strict rigour that had defined her earlier practice, with her visual language expanding to include a larger colour palette, organic forms and irregular geometries. Over this past decade, di Luciano’s works shifted substantially, marked by more experimentation, as well as merging various ,techniques to create idiosyncratic abstract universes (1 work shown on the booth). Her most recent works since 2022 are characterized by bold chromatic experimentation, gestural freedom, and deep engagement with the emotional approach (6 works shown on the booth).
Untitled, 2024. Acrylic on masonite. 70 × 70 cm (27 5/8 × 27 5/8 in)
Untitled, 2024. Acrylic and China on masonite. 40 × 40 cm (15 3/4 × 15 3/4 in)
Lucia di Luciano’s practice remains deeply connected to the broader history of abstraction. In a very intuitive approach, she merges diverse artistic histories, styles, and typologies. She incorporates a wide range of gestures and techniques, including drawing, pen doodling, dripping, and expressive hand-painting —recalling elements of Op Art, color field, expressionism, outsider art or non-western pictural traditions. The resulting works recount a dynamic and personal panorama of abstraction’s many legacies, while remaining unmistakably true to di Luciano’s own mental and emotional landscape.
Before the 2023 exhibition at Lovay Fine Arts in Geneva, di Luciano’s contemporary work had not been publicly shown for nearly 30 years, since the early 1990s.
