Roberto Crippa: Life, Spazialismo and an $852K Record

Roberto Crippa signed the third Spazialismo manifesto in 1950, working alongside Lucio Fontana in the movement that punctured, slashed and reshaped the canvas to escape flat painting altogether. His auction record stands at $851,886. Aurora & Athena currently holds Senza Titolo, a mixed-media work on paper from 1964.

Brera and the Spazialismo Circle

Crippa was born in Monza in 1921 and trained at Milan’s Brera Academy, graduating in 1947–48 under Carlo Carrà, Achille Funi and Aldo Carpi. He debuted with post-cubist figurative work at Galleria Bergamini in 1947, then aligned himself almost immediately with Lucio Fontana’s Spazialismo, becoming one of the signatories of its third manifesto in 1950. The following year he showed at the Venice Biennale — the year after his own graduation — and went on to exhibit at the Milan Triennale.

From Spirali to Totem

Crippa’s work through the early 1950s centered on the Spirali — nearly circular, gestural spiral forms building convoluted, layered spaces that seem to project past the picture plane, the clearest expression of Spazialismo’s ambition to break painting out of two dimensions. By the mid-1950s he’d moved on to the Totem series: imposing, primitive-feeling figures with real material weight. In the 1960s his Amianti and landscape works used asbestos sheets applied over engraved boards to build cosmic imagery — suns, moons, primordial terrain — reflecting the era’s fascination with space exploration. He died in a plane crash at Bresso, near Milan, in 1972, at 51 — a sudden end to a career that, in twenty-five years, had already run through post-cubism, Spazialismo, primitive sculpture-painting and a form of cosmic landscape art built from asbestos sheets.

Senza Titolo at Aurora & Athena

Aurora & Athena’s Senza Titolo is a mixed-media work on paper from 1964, from the same restless mid-career stretch that produced the Totem and Amianti series — Crippa never settled into a single vocabulary for long.

Market Value: What Crippa’s Work Is Worth Today

Crippa’s auction record is $851,886. AskArt’s database lists over 1,800 auction appearances for his work, with realized prices ranging from as little as $26 for a minor work on paper up to that six-figure record — a wide range reflecting how much medium, period and scale matter for a painter this prolific and this experimental across a short 25-year career. Canvases and major works from the Spirali and Totem periods, tied directly to the Spazialismo manifesto he signed, draw the strongest prices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Roberto Crippa?

Roberto Crippa (1921–1972) was an Italian painter trained at Milan’s Brera Academy and a signatory of the third Spazialismo manifesto alongside Lucio Fontana in 1950, known for his spiral-form Spirali paintings, the sculptural Totem series, and later cosmic-themed Amianti works.

How much is Roberto Crippa’s work worth?

Crippa’s auction record is $851,886. Realized prices for his work range widely, from around $26 for minor works on paper up to that six-figure high, with canvases from his Spirali and Totem periods commanding the strongest demand.

Where can I buy a Roberto Crippa work?

Aurora & Athena currently holds Crippa’s Senza Titolo, a 1964 mixed-media work on paper. His work also surfaces regularly at Italian auction houses and dealers specializing in Spazialismo and postwar Italian art.