Franco Francese (1920-1996)
In the early thirties he enrolled in the schools of the Società Umanitaria in Milan where he attended engraving courses and became friends with Alfredo Chighine. From 1936 he attended the Brera Art High School. After the interruption of the war, choosing the sculpture course, he studied with Giacomo Manzù at the Brera Academy. From '45 to '47 he collaborated on the magazines "Numero" and "Pittura". From the recovery of a harsh, primitive, expressionistic image, he moved on to a genre of "New Figuration" whose references were at the same time, abstract neonaturalism, Dubuffet's "Art Brut" and Bacon's defeat, almost shapeless, in the process of total disintegration. His very original work, hastily catalogued first under the heading of realism and then of a generic figuration, now emerges in all its importance and complexity.
