Born in Catanzaro in 1918.
He studied art an the School of Fine Arts in Naples in the thirties, and later moved to Rome, where he carried out experiments and research in a number of directions: photography, photo-montage, decollage, assemblages of heterogeneous objects, phonetic poetry and primitive music. Between 1951 and 1952 he visited the States on a Kansas City Fullbrigth Foundation scholarship, which he was awarded initially as a student an subsequently as an artist. In 1954 Emilio Villa invited him to display his ton-poster work in a collective show. Rotella's work immediately attracted the attention of the critics and of the avant-garde collector's world, and this firts show was followed by many others. In 1961 he was invited by the French critic Pierre Restany to join the group of the Noveaux Realistes ( Arman, Cesar, Christo, Deschamps, Dufrene, Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Spoerri, Tinguely, Villegle ). In 1963 he realised his first works of mechanical art ( Mec-Art ), printing photographic images on emulsified paper. by the end of the sixties he was producing artypoplastiques, trials of print, colour and perceptions on rigid plastic mediums. Rotella made a name for himself by transforming art into a way of behaving: " Playing with erotism and intellectual speculation, Rotella is a restless soul passing from one style to aonther with the detachment of a dandy ", wrote Otto Hahn. And it was this " vital restlessness " which was to bring him in 1990 to a re-appropation of painting, when he began to paint over the decollages the portraits of the great Masters of twentieth-century art. In 1992 he was conferred the title of Officiel des arts et de lettresby the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang. In 1994 he was invited to take part in " Italian Metamorphosis " held at the Gugenheim Museum in New York. In 1996 he took part in " Face a l'Histoire " at the Centre Pompidou and in the exhibition entitled " Halls of Mirrors " held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles , an exhibition that was to tour the world.
Mimmo Rotella is one of the most important italian artists of the twentieth century. His works are included in public and private collections all over the world.
Rottela died in Genuary 2005