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In the 1970/80s, he had more than 25 collective and solo exhibitions in major art galleries in Italy, France, Spain, Monaco, Germany and Luxembourg. He exhibited with a collective of artists including Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró during the 1975 Contemporary Art Exhibition in Fiuggi, Italy. His work was also exhibited at the Maschio Angioino, the Centro di Cultura Italiana, the Saarland Museum, the Van Gogh House Museum and the Limoges Biennale, and commissioned for public spaces including the metro in the city of Rome and the Pan-American headquarters in New York.

Following two decades of successful exhibitions, Oliviero Leonardi detached from the world of art on his own, and slowly started creating art for himself from the 1990s until his passing few years ago. His efforts, art, beliefs, innovative art techniques, numerous exhibitions, ideas, friends, and critics, namely his work and art as a whole, were almost completely forgotten.

During his exploration phase on the island of Capri, Oliviero Leonardi discovered the potential of steel as an artistic medium. After Capri, he travelled to Florence, Venice, Palermo, Rovereto and Ravenna to perfect his knowledge of the artistic forms. In a post-WWII context, he became passionate about studying the origin of our universe and, in the broader sense, human existence and condition.

Oliviero Leonardi became one of the leaders in paintings with experimental materials on steel baked in oven at high fire. He believed that art and its message should not be limited by the degrading physical attributes of its medium. He wanted to crystallize his artistic message ad vitam aeternam.

His work captures the great scene of the world where the artist's vision evolves to the heart of known and unknown spaces. The art of Oliviero Leonardi tells a sacred story, the origin, a primordial event that is created by the colors and the letters in baked ovens at high temperature. Time is not a continuous concept in Oliviero Leonardi's art.