Leonardo Ricci Paintings Head to Frieze Masters Spotlight and Unit 7 London

Key facts

• Leonardo Ricci (1918–1994) was an Italian architect known for organic-expressionist and Brutalist architecture.
• A Frieze Masters Spotlight presentation and a parallel exhibition at Unit 7 London will show his paintings this October.
• The paintings were made between the mid-1940s and the 1970s and are described as a largely overlooked chapter of post-war Italian art.
• Ricci was born in Rome, studied architecture in Florence under Giovanni Michelucci, and graduated in 1942.
• During stays in Paris between 1948 and 1950, he encountered the existentialist thought of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.
• He participated in the Salon de Mai in Paris in 1950 and 1951 alongside Giacometti, Matisse and Picasso.
• Between 1950 and 1953 his work was published by Cahiers d’Art and shown in solo exhibitions at Galerie Pierre, Landau Gallery and Bompiani Gallery.
• In 1960 an exhibition of his paintings was organised in New York with support from art historian Lionello Venturi.
• A gallery-produced documentary on Ricci will be screened at the preview of the Unit 7 London exhibition.