Carla Lonzi Biography

After completing her studies at the Michelangelo high school, she enrolled in the faculty of literature in 1950. In autumn 1952, due to the worsening conflict with her sister Lidia, she moved to Paris, but a lung inflammation forced her to bring her return to Florence forward.

She met Marisa Volpi in Roberto Longhi's classes with whom she established an intellectual and human relationship marked by the fervour of doing and thinking together.

In 1955, they co-authored an article on Ben Shahn in "Paragone" (No. 69, pp. 38-61). It was Carla Lonzi's first essay on art.

In 1956, she discussed her thesis "I rapporti tra la scena e le arti figurative dalla fine dell’Ottocento" (The Relationship between Theatre and Figurative Art since the Late Nineteenth Century).

She then moved to Rome, where she met Mario Lena, an industrial chemist who was engaged in the union and in the Communist Party (PCI).

After living together in the capital for a short while, they moved to Tuscany and married in Carrara on 28th November 1958.

Their son Battista was born on 8th June 1959.

From 1958 to 1963, she devoted herself to writing poetry. She moved to Milan in autumn 1959, and set up her first exhibition, La Gibigianna di Pinot Gallizio, at the Notizie gallery in Turin in June 1960.

Her marriage ended shortly thereafter, in spring 1961, due also to her meeting Pietro Consagra. Carla Lonzi began a relationship with Consagra that was destined to last until her death, despite numerous crises and conflicts.

Between 1962 and 1967, Lonzi curated exhibitions of the most important Italian and foreign artists. The most significant included the presentation of Carla Accardi at the XXXII Venice Biennale, as well as the exhibitions of Jannis Kounellis and Consagra at the Ariete gallery in Milan, in May and June 1967 respectively.

In December 1967, she and Consagra went to live in Minneapolis for six months. In the life of Carla Lonzi, the beginning of the seventies was characterised above all by her feminist engagement and her work for the Scritti di Rivolta Femminile group.

The last part of her life was spent in Turicchi, a farm in Chianti. She died from a serious illness on 2nd August 1982, and is buried in the Turicchi cemetery.

Her publications include: Autoritratto (1969), Sputiamo su Hegel (1970), La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale (1974), Taci, anzi parla. Diario di una femminista (1978). Her books have been translated in Argentina, Germany and France.

Nel 1952, a causa del rapporto conflittuale con la sorella Lidia, si trasferisce a Parigi. Qui ha modo di conoscere e assistere agli spettacoli di Jean Vilar per il Théâtre National Populaire.

Her experience of life in Paris presumably led to her "desire to study theatre and set design, to assiduously attend the Bibliotéque de l'Arsenal in Paris - full of original material on the nineteenth-century French theatre - and to think of a very unusual degree thesis for the course of studies in Art History" (Moreno Bucci, Rapporti tra la scena e le arti figurative dalla fine dell'800, Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 1995, p. IX).

In November 1952, Lonzi attended a conference entitled Le théâtre et la soupe, nourritures terrestres, in which, as Lonzi recalled in a note in her degree thesis, Jean Vilar affirmed "the prevalent importance – for the theatre – of the "Metteurs en scène" with respect to Authors [...].

As if to say that, despite the inertia with which Authors exploited the theatre for their literature (or music), on the other hand, the theatre itself could draw on "culture", its liveliest nucleus, i.e. the figurative arts […]".

Her thesis coordinators were Francesco Arcangeli, Giacomo De Robertis, Mina Gregori and Gilia Sinibaldi.

It is the result of intense and thorough research of bibliographic material and iconographic apparatus: photographs of theatrical sets and artists' costumes from major photographic studios, theatrical sketches.

The study analysed the problems of European staging between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the relationship between theatre and painting, direction and theatrical staging.

The thesis was edited by Moreno Bucci and published as Rapporti tra la scena e le arti figurative dalla fine dell'800, Florence, Leo S. Olschki, 1995.