First neon fine art

A pioneer and innovator of "kinetic art" and light art, Czech sculptor Zdeněk Pešánek (born as a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1896) was the first artist to create "fine art" that integrated elements of neon and luminous tubing/light bulbs in 1936. The series of works, made largely from resin and inspired by the form of the human body, were originally created for the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life held in Paris, France. Several of these sculptures are now on display (though typically not lit) at the National Gallery Prague in Czechia.

Pešánek first started experimenting with neon sculptures in the early 1930s when he was commissioned to create a series of themed artworks (such as the inner workings of an electric motor) for the exterior of the Zenger Electrical Substation in Prague, Czechia, however as it transpired, they never ended up being used for their original purpose. They too were part of the series displayed at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in 1937.

Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana is often credited as being the first to introduce neon into fine art with his piece Struttura al Neon per la IX Triennale di Milano, created for the ninth Milan Triennale in 1951, but this came more than 15 years after Pešánek's pioneering neon sculptures.