Cooper Hewitt says...
Piero Dorazio (Italian, 1927-2005) was born Piero D’Orazio in Rome. He studied architecture at the University of Rome from 1945-1951, and also spent a year in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts.
In 1950, he helped found L'Age d'Or, an artists' cooperative gallery and bookshop in Italy. He became known for using bold colors and abstract patterns, and his work was included in international exhibitions, including the 1952 Venice Biennale.
In 1953, he came to the U.S. to teach in a summer program at Harvard University and had his first solo exhibition at Wittenborn One-Wall Gallery. In 1955, he published La Fantasia Dell-Arte Nella Vita Moderna, Italy’s first book on international modern art. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts from 1961-1969. He also helped to found the university’s Institute of Contemporary Art. In 1965, he was included in “The Responsive Eye” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Dorazio returned to Italy in 1970 to live in Todi, Umbria. During the 1970s, he showed at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York organized retrospectives of his work. His dealer is Achim Moeller of Moeller Fine Art.
Dorazio was married from 1953-1983 to Virginia Dortch, with whom he had a son, Justin; and later to Giuliana Soprani, with whom he had two daughters, Angela and Allegra. He died from complications of diabetes at age 77.
