Percezioni visive. Romano Rizzato.

Fondazione POMA Liberatutti of Pescia pays tribute to Romano Rizzato (1936–2025), whose artistic career, spanning more than sixty years, moved between abstract painting and illustration, blending geometric discipline with continuous experimental research. The exhibition Percezioni Visive. Romano Rizzato (Visual Perceptions. Romano Rizzato), curated by Marta Convalle, will be open to the public from 25 September 2025 to 18 January 2026, and honours the final period of the artist’s life, spent in the Tuscan town of Uzzano, where he had moved.

The exhibition offers a journey through Rizzato’s work, highlighting a career that was coherent yet remarkably multifaceted. Moving between abstract painting and illustration, the artist consistently pursued a personal idea of “visual perception,” developed until the final months of his life.

The exhibition presents 28 paintings: acrylics on canvas, from the Rizzato Archive. Three rhomboidal works dated 2013–2014, previously exhibited, introduce the exhibition path, which continues with nineteen works created between 2020 and 2024 and shown here for the first time, testifying to the vitality of his research even in his later years. The exhibition concludes with six earlier undated paintings, also previously unseen, selected for their relationship with the more recent works, along with a selection of sketches.

A special section is dedicated to Rizzato’s final illustration project: a monumental cycle inspired by I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), signed under the pseudonym “Sergio” and presented in its entirety for the first time. The 146 plates reveal the graphic ingenuity of an author capable of combining structural discipline and narrative spirit, balancing tradition and modernity. A video dedicated to this work will be screened in Sala Francesco.

His illustration work, also signed “Sergio,” accompanied his painting practice from the 1960s onward. Rizzato collaborated with major publishers such as Fabbri and Mondadori, creating illustrations for well-known titles including Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, and the Fiabe sonore series. His illustrations for Pinocchio in particular strengthened his connection with Tuscany.

Born in Milan in 1936, Rizzato initially worked in a figurative style before turning to abstract painting with a geometric foundation, developed with discipline and coherence along a highly personal path. Crucial in the early years of his career were his encounters with painter Mario Radice and theatre director Giorgio Strehler. Throughout more than sixty years of work, he combined fidelity to his formal principles with a constant experimental curiosity, developing a profound reflection on visual perception.

During the 1960s and 1970s, his works, often in black and white, aligned with the trends of Optical Art and kinetic art, marked by strong rhythmic and visual impact. Beginning in the 1990s, he reintroduced colour and materials such as marble and sheet metal, also experimenting in the public sphere through installations and urban furnishings. His works have been exhibited in numerous countries, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Venezuela, and Japan.

The catalogue, published by Edizioni Fondazione POMA Liberatutti in the PomArte series, includes a critical essay by Paolo Arrigoni and a biography written by Alberto Demagistris.