Franco Gentilini, Figures, Lithograph, 1970s

Figures is a lithograph realized by Franco Gentilini. Color lithograph , ex. 119/120 slab misurements cm. 31,5 x 24,5 ;paper cm. 47 x 33,5 Guarantee certificate on the back. Hand signed in the lower right margin. Good condition. Franco Gentilini was born in Faenza on August 4, 1909. After attending elementary school, he began working as an apprentice in a carver cabinetmaker's workshop. Between 1921 and 1925 he attended the four evening courses of the «Tommaso Minardi» municipal school in industrial and plastic design. Subsequently he met the painter Giovanni Romagnoli, holder of the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, who gave him the first advice. In 1930 he made his first trip to Paris, and in the same year the jury of the XVII Venice Biennale admitted one of his paintings to the exhibition halls. In 1932 he moved permanently to Rome. He entered the literary environment of the historic Caffè Aragno, where he met and frequented artists and writers (Cagli, Mucci, Falqui, Sinisgalli, de Libero), starting long collaborations with them in the illustration of their texts and poems. from those years it is the deep friendship that binds him to the Ravenna painter Enrico Galassi. from 1934 he became an illustrator for magazines such as L'Italia Letteraria, Quadrivio, Il Selvaggio and from the 1940s Primato, Documento, Domenica.The thirties are years of participation in numerous awards (second place at the 1933 Rubicon Prize; first at the 1934 Rubicon Prize), at Biennials andQuadrennials. In these years, Gentilini created commissioned public works, paintings (portraits, nudes, urban landscapes, still lifes, compositions inspired by popular country festivals) and numerous drawings. Gentilini's artistic world was formed in the context of Italian culture between the Second World War and the post-war period. The artist perfects his technical note characterized by a happy marriage between painting and drawing on a preparatory material background mixed with sand. The themes of his works are cathedrals, baptisteries, jugglers and itinerant musicians, landscapes with irregular perspectives, women characterized by ankle boots with spool heels, bicycles, trucks, cats and lions. Gentilini is the artist of the joie de vivre, despite the fact that in these years he portrayed a world shattered by the Second World War. Since the mid-fifties his research has been directed towards an essential geometric stylization which, by making use of overturned perspectives and crooked planes, finds a completely new and personal compositional balance. In 1954 he entered into a contract with the merchant Carlo Cardazzo, of the Gallerie del Cavallino in Venice and the Naviglio in Milan. Since 1955 he has held the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1968 he was awarded the "Presidential Award" by the National Academy of San Luca in Rome. There are countless personal and collective exhibitions in which he participates in Italy and all over the world. His works are kept in major Italian and international museums, including the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Uffizi and the Vatican Museums. In 1979 he was elected vice president of the National Academy of San Luca in Rome. His activity continued until 1981, when he died on April 5 after a very short illnes.