Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to present the first New York exhibition in over 20 years of works by the late Italian artist, Alberto Burri. Featuring some 20 multi-media paintings and select works on paper, the exhibition celebrates Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s exclusive representation of the estate of Minsa Burri, the artist’s widow, and will shed fresh light on the scholarship and appreciation of this important Italian Post-War artist.

Providing the first public display of holdings from the Minsa Burri estate along with a selection of works from private collections, the exhibition surveys Burri’s entire output, covering almost five decades and highlighting his provocative experiments with unorthodox materials. Starting with an oil on canvas from 1946 and ending with works on ceramic from the early 1990s, the paintings on view showcase Burri’s command of a wide variety of materials, including burlap, sack cloth, pumice, tar, plastic, Cellotex (an industrial material), ceramic and glue and exhibit a range of artistic techniques such as burning, cutting, collage and other manipulations of materials.

A key early figure of the Arte Povera movement, Burri is considered an important influence on post-modern art in both Europe and the United States. Indeed, Robert Rauschenberg has cited his two visits to Burri’s studio in 1953 as an important catalyst to his own Combine series. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by renowned Italian art historian Germano Celant.