Sandro Martini (Livorno 1941 – Milan 2022). Being born in a coastal city with vast horizons and his daily exposure to the shipyard where his father worked—bringing him into contact with all kinds of materials—were fundamental to his formation as an artist. He made his debut at Galleria Le Ore in 1959 and continued his artistic journey with historical galleries in Italy, such as Il Milione (from 1965 to 1974) and Galleria Blu (from 1975 onwards), and in the USA. After an initial approach to sculpture, Martini returned to painting with a purist vision based on color and the traditional tools of painting, moving towards a distinctly spatial approach, eventually envisioning architectural installations of dyed and stretched canvases.
In 1978, he was invited by the Fine Art Center of the University of Massachusetts, marking the beginning of a long career and collaboration in the United States, where he taught printmaking and fresco techniques for 25 years at the Kala Institute in Berkeley. One of his permanent canvas installations is part of the Djerassi Foundation’s collection in Stanford, and over the years, he created numerous installations in public and private spaces, such as Briant Park, on 42nd Street, and at City Corp in New York. Meanwhile, in Italy, he followed the same path, participating in numerous exhibitions and creating large-scale installations: in 1981 at Palazzo Citterio in Milan, in 1983 in the Trading Floor Hall at the Milan Stock Exchange, in 1989 at Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence, and later that year at the Centro Asteria in Milan, where he created a series of large frescoes.
In 1993, he held a retrospective exhibition at the Contemporary Art Pavilion in Milan, and in 2004, he created a permanent installation of canvases and glass at the Casa della Carità in Milan, occupying the four floors of the building’s staircases. In 2005, the city of Livorno dedicated a retrospective to him at Bottini dell’Olio, during which a major glass work was acquired by the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Over these years, Martini’s artistic activity seamlessly transitioned between painting, installations, frescoes, and an intense production of prints, engravings, and artist books.
In 2012, he created, in collaboration with the Canadian studio architectsAlliance, the imposing permanent installation Glass Memory (etched glass and frescoed wall), commissioned by the Municipality of Toronto. In 2015, his exhibition titled Atuttosesto was held at Casa del Mantegna in Mantua. On March 20, 2017, at the Sormani Library in Milan, the Catalogue Raisonné of Sandro Martini’s works, curated by Luigi Sansone and Matteo Zarbo, was presented. Quantity-Space-Color was the title of his solo exhibition in a public space, set in the splendid setting of Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta in Lainate, Milan. His final exhibition, titled Come la vita, closed on February 25, 2023, at Guastalla Centro Arte in Livorno.
