Achille Perilli Reflects on a Lifetime of Abstraction

Achille Perilli, born in Rome in 1927, discusses his career as a pioneering Italian abstract artist in an interview at his countryside home near Orvieto. In 1947, he co-founded the Gruppo Forma 1 with Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Giulio Turcato, Pietro Consagra, Carla Accardi, Totò Sanfilippo, and Ugo Attardi. The group was the first abstract collective in postwar Italy and Europe, opposing the dominant Scuola romana and the realist style promoted by the Communist Party, which created an irreparable rift with Renato Guttuso. Perilli recalls that initially, only critic Corrado Maltese supported them; Lionello Venturi later came to understand abstraction. In 1950, he founded the avant-garde gallery L'Age d'Or in Rome, which also sold international art magazines. From 1953 to 1959, he worked for the magazine Civiltà delle macchine under Leonardo Sinisgalli. After military service, he returned to Rome in the 1960s, a period marked by Pop Art and the shift of art hegemony to America following Rauschenberg's 1964 Venice Biennale win. Perilli joined the Marlborough Gallery. His abstract practice evolved over decades, maintaining theoretical rigor and a visceral connection to painting. He describes his recent work as "a geometry of my own." A catalogue raisonné is being prepared by Giuseppe Appella in collaboration with the Archivio Perilli. Perilli will turn 90 next year.