Dadamaino

Eduarda Emilia Maino, known publicly as Dadamaino (2 October 1930 – 13 April 2004) was an Italian painter. She was a member of the Milanese avant-garde of the 1960s.

Dadamaino first completed a medical degree before taking up art at the end of the 1950s. She frequented a group of young artists who followed Lucio Fontana and the spatialism movement. Members of the group included: Piero Manzoni, Gianni Colombo, Enrico Castellani and Agostino Bonalumi.

In 1958, Dadamaino produced a series of works called Volumi, which were exhibited in her first solo show at the Galleria dei Bossi in Milan the same year.

Shortly after, Dadamaino joined Azimuth, a group funded by Piero Manzoni, and the Germany-based Group Zero formed by Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker.

Dadamaino counted Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein as major influences.

Dadamaino’s works can be seen in collections such as the Tate in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in Venice and the Foundation of Concrete Art in Reutlingen, Germany.

Dadamaino had two solo shows at the Venice Biennale in 1980 and in 1990.

• 1983 : Retrospective, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
• 2000 : Retrospective, Bochum museum, Bochum, Germany
• 2011 : "Volumes 1958-60", The Major Gallery, London, United Kingdom
• 2013 : Dadamaino, Le Consortium, Dijon, France
• 2013 : Dadamaino, Tornabuoni art, Paris, France

Dadamaino's black and white waterpaint on canvas, Volume (1959), was sold for £105,000 in 2013. This was an auction record for the artist. A new record was again reached in October 2014 with one of the artist's Volume pieces sold for £122,500.