The painter and sculptor Roberto Crippa, a key figure of Spazialismo, was born at Monza in 1921. Roberto Crippa completed his studies at the school Brera in Milan in 1940; Carlo Carrà, Achille Funi and Aldo Carpi were his teachers.
Roberto Crippa initially worked in the style of Abstract Expressionism and had his first solo show at the Milan Galleria Bergamini in 1947. After Roberto Crippa was occupied with geometric methods of abstraction for a brief period, he became a main representative of Spazialismo as of 1948. The tendency was initiated by Lucio Fontana in 1946. Roberto Crippa was also among the signers of the movement's manifestos between 1950 and 1953.
Roberto Crippa's fame is largely owed to calligraphic spiral pictures that he made between 1949 and 1952 and with which he introduced Action Painting in Italy. In the mid 1950s Roberto Crippa was increasingly occupied with painting with a surrealistic influence, later he even made ice sculptures and as of 1958 relief collages. For this genre Roberto Crippa worked with various materials, such as newsprint or pieces of wood.
Roberto Crippa's popularity did not only increase through his participations at the Biennales in Venice, but also through his exhibitions and solo shows in the U.S.A. as of 1951. In 1955 Roberto Crippa took part in the Documenta in Kassel. Today works by Roberto Crippa are in possession of renowned international museums, among them the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCS) in Strasbourg, the New York Museum of Modern Art or Tate Britain in London.
In 1972 Roberto Crippa died in Milan in a plane accident.