Italian abstract artist Paolo D'Orazio dies at 78 after fall

Paolo D'Orazio, an Italian abstract painter and co-founder of the Liart association in Rome, died at age 78 from a head injury sustained after falling from a ladder while installing a memorial exhibition for his lifelong partner Lucilla Caporilli Ferro. D'Orazio was a key figure in Italian abstraction over the past 50 years, often working in the shadow of his uncle Piero Dorazio. He co-founded Liart in the 1990s, a small gallery inside a 17th-century house in Villa Borghese, which became a hub for abstract art, hosting shows by Achille Perilli, Ennio Tamburi, Max Bill, and Nito Contreras. The space was reclaimed by the city of Rome in the mid-2010s and later abandoned. In recent months, D'Orazio had purchased a small gallery on Via Margutta to resume his curatorial work. He died two weeks before the article's publication.