Enrico Castellani was born in Castelmassa in 1930. He moved to Brussels in 1952 where he studied Painting and Sculpture at the Académie des Beaux Arts. In 1959 he created his first painting in relief. Together with Piero Manzoni he was an active member of the Zero group; he founded the magazine Azimuth and a gallery.

It was there that he held his first solo exhibition, in 1960. In the same year he presented three relief surfaces in the exhibition Monochrome Malerei at the Städtisches Museum Leverkusen. In 1964 he showed three relief canvases at the 32nd Venice Biennale and took part in the Guggenheim International Award in New York. In 1965 he exhibited a large white surface at the MoMA in New York, as part of the international exhibition “The Responsive Eye”. In 1966 he exhibited at the 33rd Venice Biennale and spent time in the United States, where he held his first American solo exhibition, at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York.

In recent years the importance of his work has been recognized and validated internationally and his works are in the most important museum’s collection in the world. The artist died in Viterbo on December 1, 2017.