Gianni Dova

Gianni Dova was born in Rome on January 8, 1925, to Edmondo Dova—Roman by adoption but of Piedmontese origin—and Maria Rauchensteiner, originally from Munich.
At the age of 16, he moved with his family to Milan, where he began attending the Brera Art High School in 1942, initially planning to pursue architecture at the Polytechnic University. However, the outbreak of war disrupted his plans. He became involved with a circle of artists who gathered in literary cafés and were associated with the magazine Corrente, founded by Ernesto Treccani. Among them were Renato Guttuso, Emilio Vedova, Renato Birolli, Ennio Morlotti, Bruno Cassinari, and Giuseppe Migneco. Alongside them, Dova recognized the significance of Picasso’s Guernica as a powerful symbol of artistic resistance to barbarism.
In 1945, he married Maria Grazia della Valle. The following year, he signed the Oltre Guernica manifesto of Realism.
In 1947, he exhibited at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice and the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan. That same year, he joined the Spatialist Movement (Movimento Spazialista) alongside Lucio Fontana, Roberto Crippa, Giorgio Kaisserlian, Beniamino Joppolo, Milena Milani, Antonio Tullier, Sergio Dangelo, Carlo Cardazzo, Cesare Peverelli, and Gian Carozzi. Dova was a leading figure in the movement, which revolved around Cardazzo’s Galleria del Naviglio, and co-signed several of its key manifestos, including:
– the Fourth (Manifesto of Spatial Art), Milan, November 26, 1951;
– the Fifth (Spazialismo and Italian Art of the Twentieth Century);
– the Sixth (Manifesto of the Spatial Movement for Television), Milan, 1952.
Later, he joined the Nuclear Painting movement with Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo.
His nephew, Pietro Spica—born in 1953 to Dova’s sister Marinella—is also a painter.
In 1963, one of his works was exhibited in the show Contemporary Italian Paintings, which toured several Australian cities. Between 1963 and 1964, he also exhibited in Peintures italiennes d’aujourd’hui, a traveling exhibition organized across the Middle East and North Africa.
Dova’s early works show affinities with Surrealism, incorporating stylistic echoes of Max Ernst.