Alberto Burri

Alberto Burri trained as a doctor and began painting as a prisoner of war in Texas. Back in Rome he replaced paint with humble, damaged materials: burlap sacks (Sacchi), burned plastic (Combustioni), wood, iron and, from the 1970s, cracked earth surfaces (Cretti), culminating in the Grande Cretto land work at Gibellina. His material abstraction anticipated Rauschenberg, Arte Povera and process art. On the market Burri is a top tier Italian post-war name but far scarcer than Fontana: few major Sacchi and Combustioni plastiche come up each year, so prices depend on the quality of the occasional masterpiece. The 2015 Guggenheim retrospective lifted his international profile, and the Fondazione Burri in Città di Castello keeps the catalogue tight.