Giorgio Griffa

A vividly illustrated catalogue accompanying legendary painter Giorgio Griffa’s first museum exhibition in the United States

 

Giorgio Griffa (b. 1936) has been a vital figure in Italian art for more than half a century. In a signature palette of pastel colors, the artist records lines, letters, and numbers with acrylic paint on unstretched, unprimed canvas. At once methodical and lyrical, his painting tests the capacities of his materials and the limits of representation. Griffa has been the subject of major solo presentations at the Centre Pompidou and the Camden Art Centre, among other institutions. In 2026, coinciding with the artist’s 90th birthday, the Clark Art Institute presents his first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

 

Griffa’s references range from poetry to mathematics and music, but he has consistently turned to the natural world, and trees in particular, to articulate his interest in relationality, materiality, difference, and growth. As he explains of his various bodies of work: “There is no progress in my cycles. They are different paths in the same forest.” Giorgio Griffa: Paths in the Forest presents a selection from almost sixty years of the artist’s work, with some paintings published for the first time. Scholarly essays offer context on different aspects of Griffa’s career, and in particular his relationship to the United States, and the significance of Minimalism and Pop Art for his development. An original text by the artist expands on his ecological thinking.

 

Distributed for the Clark Art Institute

 

Exhibition Schedule:

 

Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (May 16–October 12, 2026)