Piero Manzoni worked for only about six years, yet he packed a whole set of design questions into that time. What happens when a picture has no colour at all? When a drawing is rolled up and sealed, so nobody can see it? When the label, the edition number and the container matter as much as the contents? His answers were white canvases stiffened with clay, lines measured in metres and shut inside cylinders, and tins with printed labels in four languages. For anyone who works with packaging, editions, white space or labelling, that is useful territory.
The Art Institute of Chicago holds Piero Manzoni works, and the Met and the Cleveland Museum of Art were searched as well, but none of his works is flagged as public domain in their open-access data. This guide therefore describes his work in text only, and the featured image is a title card. None of the works discussed here is free to reuse. For images cleared for reuse, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Piero Manzoni?
The Art Institute of Chicago catalogues Manzoni as Italian, 1933–1963. Sotheby’s artist page and the biography published with the catalogue of his tins both record that he was born in Soncino, near Cremona, on 13 July 1933, and died in Milan on 6 February 1963, aged 29.
He was part of a young Milanese circle around Lucio Fontana, whose slashed and pierced canvases had already treated the picture as an object. In 1959 Manzoni and the painter Enrico Castellani published the journal Azimuth, which ran to two issues, and opened the Azimut gallery in Milan. Gagosian, which restaged the project in London in 2011, and Apollo’s review of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s later Azimut/h exhibition both describe the gallery as short-lived, active from 1959 to 1960, and Gagosian notes that it opened with Manzoni’s Lines. Gagosian also staged Manzoni: A Retrospective in New York in 2009, and Hauser & Wirth showed Piero Manzoni. Materials of His Time in Los Angeles from February to April 2019, before it travelled to New York.
What to look at in a Piero Manzoni work
Palette: no colour at all
The Achromes, whose name means “without colour”, are white or off-white. The Art Institute of Chicago’s Achrome of 1957/58 is kaolin, the white clay used for porcelain, on folded canvas. With paint removed, attention moves to the material’s own tone: the chalky white of kaolin, the bright white of cotton wool, the grey cast of a fold in shadow. That is the opposite of a blank page. Every small change in texture becomes visible.
Composition: folds, grids and repeated units
Many Achromes are divided by creases or by small units set in rows. The canvas is folded or pleated into horizontal bands, or covered in rows of cotton-wool balls or pebbles. The Art Institute’s 1962 Achrome is pebbles and kaolin on canvas. The repeated unit sets up a rhythm, and slight irregularities between units keep the surface alive, much as a well-kerned line of capitals looks even without being mechanical.
Line, measured and hidden
The Lines are single ink lines drawn along strips or rolls of paper. Each was rolled up and sealed in a cylinder, with the container labelled to record the line’s length. The work is the line you cannot see, plus the container and the label that describe it. In that sense the Lines are as much about labelling and packaging as about drawing.
Key works and series
These dated works and series come from museum records and named exhibition or foundation sources. All remain in copyright.
- Achromes, from 1957. Christie’s dates the series from 1957 to 1963, made with gesso, cotton wool, kaolin-soaked canvas and other materials. The Art Institute of Chicago holds an Achrome of 1957/58 (kaolin on folded canvas, about 44.4 × 54 cm) and one of 1962 (pebbles and kaolin on canvas, about 80 × 65 cm).
- Lines, from 1959. Shown at the opening of the Azimut gallery, according to Gagosian.
- Line 7,200 metres, 1960. The Fondazione Piero Manzoni and Artribune record that it was drawn on 4 July 1960 on a continuous roll of newsprint at the printworks of the newspaper Herning Avis in Denmark, then sealed in a zinc cylinder clad in lead. Artribune reports that it is now in HEART, the Herning museum of contemporary art.
- Artist’s Breath, 1960 (Art Institute of Chicago). A balloon on a wooden base, about 18 × 18 cm, in the museum’s record.
- Magic Base, 1961. A plinth meant to turn whoever stands on it into a living sculpture, as described by Magazzino Italian Art in its exhibition material.
- Artist’s Shit (Merda d’artista), May 1961. Ninety numbered tins, each labelled in four languages as holding 30 grams, according to the Fondazione Piero Manzoni. Tate holds one of the series.
Piero Manzoni’s technique
For the kaolin Achromes, Manzoni soaked canvas in liquid kaolin, often after creasing or stitching it, and let it dry. The clay stiffened the folds and set them in place, so the surface records the gesture of folding as a fixed relief. Later Achromes swapped or combined the clay with other white materials, such as gesso, cotton wool and pebbles coated in kaolin. The method is the same each time: pick a material, repeat it, keep it white.
The Lines and tins work differently. Here the technique is production and labelling. The Herning line was made on a newspaper press roll, the tins were numbered as an edition, and each came with printed labels. That is closer to a design process than to painting: specify the format, run the edition, write the copy for the label. The labels themselves, with their text repeated across languages, are worth studying for anyone interested in lettering and type on objects.
His near-contemporary Yves Klein pushed the monochrome in the other direction, towards a single saturated blue. Comparing the two is a quick way to see how much a single decision about colour, all or nothing, shapes the work.
How designers can borrow Piero Manzoni’s ideas
These approaches borrow the thinking without reproducing any of his works, which remain in copyright.
- Design in white. Strip colour from a packaging range or a brand texture and let embossing, folds, paper stock and shadow carry the design. A white-on-white emboss shows exactly what the Achromes teach: texture becomes the image.
- Repeat a unit. A grid of identical small objects, photographed in even light, makes a strong background or hero image. Let slight irregularities show.
- Let the label do the talking. The Lines and tins depend on their printed text: length, date, weight, number. Treat product labels, spec sheets and edition notes as content, not small print.
- Number the edition. Visible numbering, such as 004 of 090, adds value and story to prints, merchandise and limited packaging.
- Seal something. A closed tube, a sealed envelope or an unopened box invites curiosity. Use it in unboxing design, invitations or direct mail, where the container is the first thing people experience.
- Measure with off-whites. If you build an off-white palette from your own photographs of paper, plaster or clay, our colour palette generator helps you pull and compare the subtle tones.
Copyright and where to see the work
Piero Manzoni died in 1963, so his works remain in copyright in most countries, and no museum record checked here flags any as public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the two Achromes and Artist’s Breath listed above, Tate holds a tin from Artist’s Shit, and HEART in Herning holds the 7,200-metre line. The Fondazione Piero Manzoni in Milan holds further works, including an early ink Line fragment on paper.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Piero Manzoni?
Piero Manzoni (1933–1963) was an Italian artist based in Milan, known for his white Achromes, his sealed Lines and his tins of Artist’s Shit. He co-founded the Azimut gallery and the journal Azimuth with Enrico Castellani in 1959.
What is an Achrome?
An Achrome is one of Manzoni’s colourless works, begun in 1957. Early examples are canvas soaked in kaolin clay and folded or creased; later ones use cotton wool, pebbles and other white materials.
What is in Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit tins?
The labels state 30 grams of the artist’s excrement, preserved in May 1961, across an edition of ninety numbered tins. What the tins actually hold has never been publicly verified, and the contents remain disputed.
Are Piero Manzoni’s works public domain?
No. Manzoni died in 1963, so his works remain in copyright in most countries, and none is flagged as public domain by the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Cleveland Museum of Art. This guide describes them in text only.
