Niele Toroni
1937– · Swiss painter associated with European conceptual and minimalist art
Niele Toroni (born in Muralto, 1937) is a Swiss painter who lives and works in Paris. He is known for a systematic practice he began in 1966 and called "Travail-Peinture". He is regarded as a significant figure in European art of the 1960s and 1970s for reducing painting to a measured, repeated gesture.
Toroni's method consists of brushstrokes made with imprints of a no. 50 paintbrush, repeated at perpendicular intervals of 30 centimetres. The approach was first shown in 1967 in Paris, in an exhibition-performance at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. That same year he co-founded the BMPT group with Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset and Michel Parmentier. Works such as Miroir d'Eau (1973) and Vert Wagon (1977) follow the same repetition at regular 30 cm intervals.
His work was included in documenta 7 (1982) and documenta 9 (1992), the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1991 and the Venice Biennale in 1976. His works are held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kunstmuseum Luzern. He has received honours such as the Prix Meret Oppenheim (2012) and the Wolfgang Hahn Prize (2003).