Sergio Lombardo has cut an anomalous, isolated, and eclectic figure on the Italian scene since the late ’50s. Best known for his contribution to Italian Pop art in paintings of large, black silhouettes of famous people captured in gesti tipici, or characteristic gestures, Lombardo suddenly pulled away from that movement, around 1965, to tackle aesthetic research of a scientific and psychological nature—applying algorithms to “aesthetic stimuli” to test “empirical valuation.” In 1979 he founded the Rivista di Psicologia dell’Arte (Journal of the Psychology of Art).

This small retrospective included