Born in 1935 in Vimercate, Italy; died in 2013 in Milan, Italy.
Agostino Bonalumi studied technical-mechanical design. In the fifties he frequented Enrico Baj’s studio where he met Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, with whom he founded the magazine Azimuth. He had his first solo exhibition in 1956 at the Galleria Totti in Milan; in 1958, also in Milan, he exhibited at the Galleria Pater with Castellani and Manzoni. In the 1960s and 1970s he became one of the main exponents of the conception of art akin to the “shaped canvas”, as the contemporary American experiences in which the surfaces of the canvas are shaped with wooden supports.
In 1961, in the Gallery Kasper of Lausanne, he was one of the founders of the group New European School. Among the numerous exhibitions, he participated at the Venice Biennale (1966, 1970 with a personal room and 1986), Biennale of Sao Paulo (1966), Paris Biennale(1968) and Quadrennial of Rome (1986, 1999). Moreover; he exhibited in 1981 with Dorazio, Rotella and Santomaso in the exhibition Italian Art Contemporary Four Directions at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale in Florida and, in 2001, the Collective Materia / Niente at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice. Among his solo shows, Arturo Schwarz Gallery in Milan (1965), the Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund (1968) – for which he makes the painting Grande Nero – Palace Museums in Modena (1974) curated by Giulio Carlo Argan, Palazzo Te in Mantua curated by Flavio Caroli and Dorfles (1980), the Guggenheim Museum in Venice (2000) – which presents historical works and the Environment White and the Institut Mathildenhöe Darmstadt (2003-2004). In 2001, he was awarded the Premio del Presidente della Repubblica for painting. In the same year the National Academy of San Luca organises his solo exhibition and elects him as academician.