Roberto Crippa
1921 - 1972
Died in Bresso (IT), born in Monza (IT).
Roberto Crippa was an Italian painter and sculptor. After his education at the Brera Art Academy in Milan, the city where he was also born, he started painting in 1945. His early works contain elements that can be linked to neo-cubism, but his paintings are still figurative. His encounter with Lucio Fontana caused him to join the ‘Spatial Movement’. So Crippa signed the Third Manifesto of Spatialism in 1950 and one year later he also participated in the ‘Space Art Manifesto’. These ideas of the early fifties flow through in his works from that time, as he starts with his “gestural painting”. His ‘Spirals’ are his most known works of that tiime. He is noticed internationally, and this brings him to New York, where he meets surrealists, such as Max Ernst. In the mid-fifties he switches his ‘Spirals’ for his ‘Totems’ and starts as well with multi-material sculptures. This even evolves into the use of natural materials in the 1960s. In addition to art, he is tremendously involved into aviation, but this passion for aircraft leads to a fatal outcome: he doesn’t only end up in a wheelchair for a year after a flight accident in 1962, but an effective plane crash also means his death in 1972.
Roberto Crippa was a very good friend of Jef Verheyen, they have met in 1957. When Verheyen switched from ceramics to painting, he started travelling to Italy, and especially to Milan, where he met Fontana, Manzoni and Crippa. From then on, they became close friends and both privately and professionally they supported each other. This can be inferred not only from their correspondence, which deals with both business and personal matters, but also from the fact that one of Verheyen’s sons bears the surname Crippa, as he was his godfather.
