Nicola De Maria (born 6 December 1954) is an Italian artist and painter.
He is one of the five artists of the Transavanguardia Italiana, theorized by Achille Bonito Oliva in 1978, but, unlike the other members of the group, such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Mimmo Paladino, his work focused mainly on abstractism and a pictorial approach in which the limits of the canvas were exceeded to enter into relation with the surrounding space.
De Maria exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1980, 1988, 1990), Documenta 7 in Kassel (Germany) (1982), the XVI São Paulo Biennale (Brazil) (1981), the IV Sydney Biennale (Australia) (1982) and the Quadriennale in Rome (2005, 2012).
Retrospectives of his work took place at the Museum Haus Lange (Krefeld) (1983), the Kunsthalle Basel in Basel (1983), the Kunsthaus in Zurich (1985), the Stedeljik van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (1985), the Seibu Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo (1988), the Musee des Beaux Arts Nimes (1994), the Kunstverein Ludwigsburg (1994), the Liechtensteinische Staatliche Kunstsammlung, Vaduz (1998), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (2004) and the Pecci Museum in Prato (2012). He also participated in the retrospectives of the Transavantgarde Italiana at Castello di Rivoli in 2003 and Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2012.
De Maria lives and works in Turin.
