Composition abstraite, Circa 1970

Berto Lardéra  

Lardéra places himself in the tradition of Pevsner, Tatlin, Archipenko or Julio Gonzales. With his own foundations thus laid, Berto Lardéra moves on to the third dimension. He now assembles plates of cut metal, simple shapes often hollowed out in their center, which he distributes more freely in space. For Lardéra, emptiness is his primary material; the artist works on lightness and on the adaptation of his sculptures to the environment. Very often the edges of his plates are cut in the shape of crenellations, which will become one of the distinctive marks of his style. Berto Lardéra works on different materials such as iron, aluminum, copper, stainless steel or Corten steel. 

From 1958 to 1961, Berto Lardéra taught sculpture at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. Still working with steel, Lardéra also worked as an engraver. Berto Lardéra had the opportunity to create several monumental works; Sometimes his works were erected alongside prestigious architectures: that of Mies Van der Rohe in Krefeld (Germany), those of Aalvar Alto and Walter Gropius in Berlin, that of Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin (United States). 

Berto Lardéra died in Paris in 1989.