Gianfranco Pardi was born in 1933 in Milan, he was an Italian painter and sculptor. He devotes himself to studies that start from poetry and philosophy, only later addressing himself to architecture.

After the first tests under the name of a figuration with neo-metaphysical tones, he set up his research on space and on the constructive planning that gives life to works of great formal rigor, characterized by the integration of drawing, painting and sculpture in a spatial dimension of architectural breath.

In 1959 his first personal exhibition was held in Brescia, at the Galleria Alberti, while the following year it was hosted by the Galleria Colonna in Milan.

During the Sixties he develops a style that integrates drawing, painting, sculpture and architecture. In 1965 he took part in the group exhibition La figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain in Paris.

In 1967 he began his collaboration with the Marconi Studio in Milan and devoted himself to the creation of strictly geometric works that are a reinterpretation of historical avant-gardes such as Abstractionism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Neoplasticism.

In the Seventies he develops in his Architectures the will to build and found a space through painting, since he believes that this means of expression can immediately produce the idea. His works are developed through geometric signs and gestures which, together with a few colours, help him to express the concept of constructiveness.

In 1974, and later in 1993, he participated in the XXVII Biennial of the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan.

In 1981 he was part of two important group exhibitions such as Lines of artistic research in Italy 1960/1980, at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, and Il posto della forma, at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona.

In the second half of the Eighties, the achievement of formal equilibrium is enriched with a new tension and his compositions acquire a more lyrical dimension.

In 1984 the University of Parma organized a major retrospective for him. It was the 1986 the year of consecration, when Pardi participated with a personal at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale and the Rome Quadriennale.

Between the late Eighties and early Nineties, he created the works of the Cinema, Monk and Masks series, focusing on the use of iron supports. Subsequently, his artistic research is directed on the theme of “Mountain-Sainte Victoire“, inspired by the works of Cézanne, and by the cycles entitled Magma, inspired by the light and night of Tangier, and Box, or works made with cardboard boxes.

In 1998 Palazzo Reale in Milan hosts a personal exhibition. The following year a series of important exhibitions were organized in Germany at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt, the Bochum Museum in Bochum and the Kulturhistorisches Museum in Stralsund, while in 2000 the personal exhibition entitled Homeless was inaugurated at the Giò Marconi Gallery in Milan.

In 2002 he held the retrospective Sheets at Galleria Fumagalli in Bergamo, while in 2003 he exhibits again at the Galleria Giò Marconi with a series of works entitled Dance and Restoration.

During his career he created numerous sculptures for public and private spaces: 1988 Albergo Bellevue, Malcesine (Verona); 1995 General Command of the Finance Police, Via XX Settembre, Rome; 1996 Costa Vittoria ship, Genoa; 1998 Zanaria House, Rue de Bièvre, Paris; 1999 Soundtrack, SNAM San Donato Milanese (Milan); 2001 Box, Cascina Mangiagruppa Zeme Lomellina (Pavia); 2002 Sheet, ACF Contact Brembate Sopra (Bergamo); 2006 Dance, Piazza Amendola, Milan; 2015 Sprigionamenti, Negombo, Bay of San Montano (Ischia).

Member of the National Academy of San Luca since 2008.

Independent artist and outside the choir, stranger to schools and currents, Pardi died in Milan on February 2, 2012.

In October 2013, the Gianfranco Pardi Cultural Association / Gianfranco Pardi Archive was established, in memory of the artist with the aim of promoting and disseminating his knowledge and figure.