Mario Schifano (1934-1998) was the most important
Italian painter of the second half of the 20th century. A member of the “Scuola di Roma” and the
Pop Art movement, he was in actual fact a figurative artist, an eclectic user of multiple media, moving from painting to cinema to the use of video. His relationship with the United States is a key element in his work. In 1962, he embarked on his first journey to the USA. He frequented Frank O'Hara, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko,
Andy Warhol and Gregory Corso. He exhibited at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York as part of the exhibition titled
The New Realists. He produced various experimental films:
Satellite (1968),
Umano non umano (1969), and
Trapianto, consunzione e morte di Franco Brocani (1969). His works were displayed in various editions of the Venice Biennale, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1981) and as part of the exhibition Arte italiana nel XX secolo (1989) staged by the Royal Academy in London. In 1974, the Palazzo della Pilotta (Salone delle Scuderie) in Parma hosted the first major retrospective of his work.
