Enrico Castellani was born in Castelmassa, in the province of Rovigo, in 1930. He studied in Novara and Milan. In 1952 he moved to Brussels, Belgium, where he studied painting and sculpture at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. In 1956 he graduated in architecture at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Cambre. In the same year, he moved to Milan.
In 1959 he founded, along with Piero Manzoni, an art gallery and a magazine, both named Azimuth. So began his artistic adventure within these two realities, holding within them, purely organizational and theoretical tasks. He exhibited at the Gallery Azimuth in 1960. In the same period he joined the group Zero and Nul.
Having abandoned informal outcomes, he dedicated himself to the first experiments with canvas that is over-stretched and painted, which would become his unmistakable signature style.
He exhibited, in 1961, at the Turtle Gallery of Rome (and again in 1965, 1966, 1970, 1974), while in 1962 at the Galerie d'Aujourd'hui Brussels, and in 1963 at the gallery dell'Ariete Milan, where he returned to exhibit in 1972. From 1963 to 1970 the surface poetry gave way to the subject and the artist's attention focuses on the study of formal articulations of the surface: canvases are shaped, angular, diptychs and triptychs.
In 1964 he exhibited at the Polena Gallery and the News Gallery in Turin. In these years Enrico Castellani took part in numerous collective and personal exhibitions held both in Italy and abroad. In 1966 he won the Gollin prize at the Venice Biennale. The same year he exhibited again at the Gallery News in Turin, at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York and Tokyo Gallery in Tokyo. In 1970 he exhibited at the M Gallery, Bochum. He showed at the Form Gallery in Genoa in 1972.
Since the mid-'70s to the '80s he made many solo exhibitions, among which are those mentioned at least at the following galleries: News Gallery and the New City Gallery of Brescia in 1974; Hall of the Scuderia at the Pilotta, Rome; the Polena Gallery, Genoa; Aries Graphics, Milan and Peccolo Gallery, Livorno in 1976; Mazzoli Gallery, Modena, and the Studio City, Verona in 1979.
During the 1980s and '90s his work continued to develop the over-stretched, protruding technique, within an idea that critics wanted to define as "different repetition."
Enrico Castellani had from two personal exhibitions at Lorenzelli Arte, in 1986 and 1991, and also participated in the collective "Correspondences", also held by Lorenzelli Art from March 5 to April 30, 1998. Works by Enrico Castellani appear in some of the most important public and private collections worldwide.