A leading figure in the post-World War II Italian avant-garde, Bonalumi was an Italian painter, draughtsman and sculptor who sought an alternative to the gestural abstraction of the Informel painting that predominated in the 1950s European art world. In 1959 Bonalumi innovated the discovery of the "extroflection", whereby he specifically outfitted stretcher bars with dynamically shaped relief elements to press against the back of a taut canvas. This method produced paintings that appear animated in their three-dimensionality, abandoning the picture and interacting with the real space of the viewer.

Inspired by Lucio Fontana's radical conceptions of space in his slices and punctured canvases, Bonalumi and his painter friends devised practices that emphasized the physical presence and forthright materiality of the work of art, an idea they referred to as "pittur-oggetto" (painting-object). Their work was instrumental in propogating international currents of the avant-garde, such as the German Zero group, the French Nouveau Réalistes, and the American Neo-Dada.

Bonalumi held exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world before his death in September 2013. In 2002 he was awarded the Presidente della Republica Prize, and in October 2013 was honored with the first retrospective of his work at the Robilant + Voena Gallery in London.

Vinyl tempera on shaped canvas
78.7 x 78.7 x 4.5 in (200 x 200 x 11.5 cm)