Partanna, 1923 – Rome, 1980

Born in Partanna (Trapani) in 1923, Antonio Sanfilippo attended the Liceo Artistico in Palermo in 1938, where he studied with Ugo Attardi and Pietro Consagra. In 1942, he enrolled in the painting course at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, as a pupil of Felice Carena.

In 1946 he settled in Rome and in 1947, with Accardi, Attardi, Consagra, Dorazio, Guerrini, Perilli, Turcato and Maugeri he founded the Gruppo Forma. In 1948 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale; he participated again in 1954, 1964 and 1966, the year in which a personal room was dedicated to him.

In 1951 he made a second trip to Paris with Carla Accardi (whom he had married two years earlier), during which he personally met Hans Hartung, who was to have a profound influence on his painting, as well as Alberto Magnelli, Arp and Kandinsky, whom he had already met from his previous trip in 1948.

The 1960s were the definitive establishment of Sanfilippo’s painting in Italy and abroad. After the more dramatic and expressive informal period, he developed a language of colourful signs of minute and animated form that filled the surface of the painting.

In 1971, he held his last solo exhibition at Editalia in Rome. The, and sometimes becomes ironic and allusive. In the last period, the sign became larger and is often used on large dimensions. In the 1970s, his artistic activity slowed down and his exhibition activity thinned out.

On 31 January 1980 he died from the after-effects of a car accident.