Lucio Fontana's Ceramic Practice Reassessed

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), trained in his father's sculpture workshop in Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina, consistently used ceramics throughout his career, not just in his youth. He insisted he was a sculptor, not a ceramist, rejecting refined porcelain for vigorously worked clay. His exploration began in earnest in 1936 at the Mazzotti factory in Albisola, Italy, founded in 1903. He spent summers there for over a decade, producing works including the Concetto spaziale-Natura series (1959-1960). In 1937, he worked at the Manufacture de Sèvres in Paris, learning grand feu firing. His first solo ceramic exhibitions were at Galerie Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor (November 1937) and Galerie Zack (December 1937). In 1949, he exhibited ceramics at MoMA's "Twentieth Century Italian Art." Fontana created numerous religious works in ceramic, including three Via Crucis (1947, 1955, 1957) and altarpieces for Milan churches. His ceramic Battaglia pieces from the late 1940s show abstract-figurative forms. He produced Ceramiche spaziali concurrently with his first Concetti spaziali (Buchi) and Ambiente spaziale a luce nera in 1949. Critic Guido Ballo described Fontana's hands creating "aerial musicality" while modeling. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti cited Fontana in the 1938 manifesto "Ceramica e Aeroceramica." Fontana's ceramics were a means to explore spatial concepts, not a secondary pursuit.