(Volterra, 23 July 1925 – Civitanova Marche, 12 August 2006) was an Italian artist and graphic designer. He was born in Volterra in 1925 and at the end of the war he returned to study, graduating in Florence with a thesis entitled I canovacci and the scenography of the Commedia dell’Arte. He continues to support himself with various types of work, moving from his first editorial experiences, from directing, from set design to eminently practical activities linked to more everyday professions.

We will see how this all-round attitudinal inheritance will accompany him for life even in his creative and artistic activity which will end in what he will call “operational gaps”.

From the end of the 1940s he gained his experiences in the world of entertainment as he himself recalls: “I even acted as a director: making Tennessee Williams with Fabbri”.

He also continued his activity in the field of visual arts, making his debut in 1955 when, sponsored by Giuseppe Ungaretti, he created an exhibition at the Galleria L’Indiano in Florence.

The period between 1955 and 1966 is characterized by numerous trips abroad and important activities in the theater sector.

During his stay in Canada he collaborated with Norman MacLaren for the National Film Boarding of Montreal, contributing to experimental research and the production of animated cartoons, an experience that allowed him to carry out intense activity in the USA, France and England.

In the scenographic field he created Majakovsky and Co. at the October Revolution directed by Carlo Quartucci.

Upon his return to Italy in the early 1960s, he was among the protagonists of Gruppo ’63 together with that circle of artists who, starting from the mid-1950s, contributed to the evolution of Italian and international verbovisual art.

Called to the Lerici Foundation to make documentaries, in 1963 he became editor in chief of the Marcatrè magazine at the Lerici publishing house in Milan.

In this professional journey he is accompanied by some of the most intellectually lively personalities on the Italian cultural scene such as Eugenio Battisti, Germano Celant, Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco, Daniela Palazzoli to name a few.

In 1965 he became responsible for the graphic design and chief editor of the aforementioned magazine; at the same time he is the curator of the Marcalibri series for which important exponents of verbal-visual artistic research will publish, including Ugo Carrega, Martino Oberto, Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, Decio Pignatari, Lamberto Pignotti and Emilio Isgrò.

In the creative field, Mussio gave a significant turning point to his individual artistic activity, quickly establishing himself as one of the early protagonists of the verbo-visual neo-avant-garde which would achieve great success throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Both he and the other few protagonists active in Italy, including Cy Twombly, Gastone Novelli, Gianfranco Baruchello and Gianni Emilio Simonetti, pursue a pictographic style that aims to unify the “material forms” of painting with the values ​​of words or thought.

On both a human, philosophical and pictographic level, these artists are committed to rebuilding an intense and authentic relationship which through art enhances new ways of dealing with the relationship between art and life through signs, words and images so innovative as to oppose the styles and conceptions of the mass media that aimed to condition and make the public passive.

Towards the end of the 1960s, Mussio moved to Macerata to be involved in the publishing house La nuova Foglio in the work of editor, and from 1978, editorial manager of the magazine “La città di Riga” of the same publishing house.

From this moment on, Mussio’s experiences in the publishing field were joined by collaboration with Edizioni Out of London Press in the role of editor of the Altro series.

While in the years between the Sixties and Seventies signs and words occupied Mussio’s paintings with great intensity and in unpredictable ways, to the point of sometimes being almost illegible, as we moved towards the end of the century the sign and verbal interventions became more concise: they search for symbols or play with words, transforming the sometimes fragmented writings into terms with alternative meanings.

The drafting of the works is enriched with multiple unpublished materials, sometimes improvised or extracted even in small sections from the realities of everyday life.

The structure of Mussio’s works is never repeated: sometimes the hosted and stratified materials cover the entire surface of the background, other times they are arranged in different areas.

Among the recurring colors are white and black which alternate with appearances of gold, red and colors obtainable exclusively in nature such as rust and tannin.

A nature in which Mussio, like a good “amanun cartographer”, rummages to model and then produce his interventions.

These interventions continued intensely and constantly, as evidenced by his exhibition activity, in the 1990s and 2000s.

At the time of his death, apart from his artistic, editorial and film production, we are reminded of him by some important video interviews filmed in his studio in Pollenza and Civitanova, where he left us on 12 August 2006.