In 1952 an Umbrian artist scandalized art critics worldwide with burned wood, flame-red paintings, dramatic combustions of plastics, and a black that was the color of tar: his name was Alberto Burri (Citta di Castello 1915 - Nice 1995), one of the greatest artists of all times. This book sets out to reveal many of his works that have remained unknown until today.

An affordable introduction to the Art Informel pioneer's poetical use of everyday materials A leading light of the Art Informel generation that also included Tàpies and Dubuffet, Alberto Burri (1915-95) continues to exert a huge influence on artists today, as the popularity of his 2015 Guggenheim show and the perpetual scarcity of Burri monographs attests. This volume--the most comprehensive book on the artist in print--explores the beauty and complexity of the creative process, "material poetry," that undergirded all of his work. Burri worked with the most varied materials with an inexhaustible creative energy: tar, paper, fabric, jute sacks, combustions of plastic, wood and iron all found their way into his picture plane, transfiguring the vocabulary of painting for the postwar sensibility. The titles of Burri's various series convey this "material poetry" Gobbi (hunchbacks), Muffe (molds), Bianchi (whites), Legni (woods), Ferri (irons), Combustioni plastiche (plastic combustions), Cretti and Cellotex. This affordable volume introduces Burri's poetical vocabulary of materials for a new audience.