Achille Perilli was born in Rome on 28 January 1927 and died in Orvieto in 2021. He was one of the leading figures of post-war Italian abstraction and developed a highly personal investigation of sign, colour, space and geometry. His work progressively moved towards unstable forms, impossible perspectives and deliberately contradictory spatial structures.
Training and Forma 1
During the 1940s, Perilli studied in Rome and attended the studio of painter Aldo Bandinelli together with Piero Dorazio. He later studied Literature under Lionello Venturi and worked on a thesis devoted to Giorgio de Chirico’s Metaphysical painting.
In 1947 he co-founded Forma 1 with Carla Accardi, Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Antonio Sanfilippo and Giulio Turcato. The group defended an abstract language while maintaining a Marxist cultural position.
Concrete Art and European abstraction
In 1948 Perilli joined the Movimento Arte Concreta, taking an active role in the debate surrounding Italian post-war abstraction.
During visits to Paris he came into contact with artists including Jean Arp, Alberto Magnelli and Francis Picabia. These encounters strengthened his interest in a non-figurative language connected with the European avant-garde.
L’Esperienza Moderna
In 1957 Perilli founded the magazine L’Esperienza Moderna with Gastone Novelli.
The publication became an important platform for dialogue between visual art, poetry, literature and experimentation. During the same period, Perilli expanded his work in printmaking, works on paper and artist’s books.
Sign, space and irrational geometry
From the late 1950s onwards, Perilli developed the distinctive visual language for which he became best known.
Geometric forms lose their stability and conventional perspective. Lines, planes and volumes collide, producing intentionally impossible spatial relationships.
Perilli rejected geometry as a purely rational system and developed what he later called irrational geometry, based on ambiguity, paradox and visual contradiction.
In 1971 he published the Manifesto della Folle Immagine nello Spazio Immaginario, followed in 1982 by his Theory of Irrational Geometry.
Biennales, theatre and experimentation
Perilli exhibited internationally throughout his career and had solo rooms at the Venice Biennale in 1962 and 1968.
During the politically charged 1968 edition, he closed his room in support of the protests taking place at the Biennale.
His work also extended to theatre, stage design, sculpture and artist’s books. In 1965 he designed sets and costumes for the ballet Mutazioni at La Scala in Milan.
Egidi MadeinItaly works in the gallery
Among the works currently available at Egidi MadeinItaly is Systematic 1°, a 1975 lithograph, edition 58/99, signed and dated by the artist. The work reflects Perilli’s investigation of sign, colour and deliberately unstable geometric space.
Achille Perilli, Systematic 1°, 1975, lithograph on paper, edition 58/99. Available at Egidi MadeinItaly
Museums and collections
Perilli’s works are held in major international collections.
The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome holds E dietro infiniti spazi, 1983-84.
Vatican Museums preserve Le désir d’illumination, from his series of monochrome white paintings.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York also holds several works by Perilli, including the 1966 etching and aquatint In the Heart of Things.
Perilli continued working into his final years and died in Orvieto in 2021 at the age of 94.
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