Established in Paris in 1951, Piza studies engraving under Johnny Friedlaender, perfecting his art of gouge and chisel, etching and intaglio, aquatint and drypoint techniques.
He gradually frees himself from figuration, and pursues a more constructivist vein: the refined forms now stand on delicately worked backgrounds.
He develops a new engraving technique by digging deeply into the metal. His matrices become real bas-reliefs. This allows him to print his engravings in a single pass at the press – as the colors, captured in the deep cuts, do not mix. This technique also allows him to increase the relief obtained on the paper.
These engravings were exhibited at the Documenta in Kassel in 1959; that same year, he won the Prize for best engraving at the Fifth Biennale in São Paulo.
His researches finally lead him to take off the paper, to place his figures in the open space. But he’ll go on engraving until the last years of his life.
In total, there will be around 400 prints. A complete set of this production is kept at the Pinacoteca of the State of São Paulo. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France holds 183 of them in its collections. Here are a few.