Sandro Chia (real name Alessandro Coticchia) was born in Florence on 20 April 1946, and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Tuscan capital. For a time he travelled in India, Turkey and Europe, and once back in Italy, in 1970, he settled in Rome and held his first solo exhibition in 1971 at the La salita gallery. A few years later, he joined the Transavanguardia collective and participated with the other artists of the group in the ‘Aperto 80’ section of the 1980 Venice Biennale, later mounting a solo exhibition in New York. After about a decade in Rome, he decided to move to New York, where he stayed for about twenty years, while continuing to move regularly between the United States and Italy.
He returned again to the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1989, while he continued to exhibit his works in major Italian and international museums, such as the Castello di Rivoli, and then in New York, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim in 1983 and the Met – Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in 1984.
The artist still lives today between Miami, Rome, and Tuscany, more precisely in the Castello Romitorio in Montalcino.Since 1987, he has also been involved in the production of prestigious wines, including the famous Brunello di Montalcino.In 2003, the Italian State acquired three of his works that became part of the permanent collection of the Senate of the Italian Republic in Palazzo Madama, while in 2005, the Province of Rome bought two monumental sculptures that were placed in front of its headquarters in Rome. Auctions of his works are quite frequent and very successful, for example in 2007 his work The Pharmacist’s son (1981) was sold at Christie’s in the UK for EUR 300,000, setting a record.