Paolo Masi, the Florentine artist known for his lifelong exploration of poor materials and their transformation, died in Florence on Wednesday, May 6, just days before his 93rd birthday. His career spanned from informal experiments in the 1950s through a rigorous investigation of materials in the 1960s, including his first solo show at the Strozzina in 1960. He joined the aesthetic research group Centro F/Uno alongside Baldi, Lecci, and Nannucci, and later co-founded the collective spaces Zona (1974) and Base (1998) with Mario Mariotti and Maurizio Nannucci. Masi participated in the Venice Biennale (1978) and the Rome Quadriennale (1986), and his works are held by major museums and foundations internationally. His later years saw significant retrospectives at the Museo MAGA in Gallarate (2018) and at Le Murate in Florence (2018), as well as a 2023 solo show at Florence's Galleria Frittelli, which remembered him as an extraordinary artist and dear friend.
Masi's death marks the loss of a key figure in Italian post-war art, whose decades-long commitment to material experimentation—from aluminum rods and mirrors to raw canvas and packing cardboard—placed him at the intersection of Analytical Painting, Neo-Concretism, and the Arte Povera sensibility. His collaborative ethos, embodied in the artist-run spaces Zona and Base, influenced generations of artists in Florence and beyond. The tributes from Galleria Frittelli and the continued presence of his work in international collections underscore his enduring relevance to contemporary art discourse on materiality and process.