Claudio Verna (b. 1937, Italy) is one of the protagonists of the 1970s Italian painting and was first exhibited during intense political and cultural expression in Italy. In contrast to the contemporaneous Arte Povera, often considered to be the definitive artistic movement in major Italian cities during the 1960s-1970s. Instead, Verna maintained the importance of painting, a medium most had discarded.

As a leading figure of the “Pittura Analitica” (Analytical Painting) school, Verna explored the very fundamentals of the medium, resulting in cogent and vibrant explorations of form, colour and space. His works after 1978 display a sudden change in tone, moving to the gestural and the dynamic, embodying Verna’s own strong assertions that there was no other medium but colour he could ever express himself in. Whether in the geometric precision of his earlier works or the bold freeing of colour in his later ones, his works transport the viewer into the polychromatic eyes of Verna himself.

A major retrospective of Verna’s works was held at Cardi Gallery London (January 24 – March 30, 2018), curated by Piero Tomassoni, which included twenty important works spanning Verna’s entire artistic oeuvre. Verna currently lives and works in Rome.