957 - Franco Gnocchi, Rustico Porticciolo, Italian harbour picture with boats in morning mist

Franco Gnocchi, Rustico Porticciolo, Italian harbour picture with boats in morning mist Oil/canvas, second half 20th c., signed 'Gnocchi Franco' lower right. On the reverse, on an artist's label with a portrait photograph, inscribed 'Rustico Porticciolo' and with the archive number '89/9', inscribed 'Autentica' and signed on the canvas; inscribed 'GNOCCHI FRANCO' on a plaque on the frame. A small harbour in hazy weather, kept throughout in muted tones of grey, green and beige and laid on in broad palette-knife technique. In the foreground three moored rowing boats lie in the shallow water, between them stand thin masts and poles with rigging, at the left stands a mooring post. The middle ground shows a flat shore with a suggested row of trees and individual pale buildings, above it the hazy sky passes into the surface of the water without a discernible horizon line. Good condition. Image 60 x 70 cm (HxW). Framed, frame bumped, frame width 11 cm. Franco Gnocchi was born in 1945 in Gallarate in the province of Varese and works there to this day. He comes from a family of painters: his father Guido Gnocchi signed as 'Guido da Cedrate', his son Andrea Gnocchi studied at the Brera in Milan; in 2007 all three generations were exhibited together at the Villa Delfina in Gallarate. Father and son worked as self-taught artists. Gnocchi's painting belongs to the lyrical landscape painting of northern Italy, which allows object and space to merge in a dense atmosphere. The note 'Autentica' is the form of confirmation of authenticity by the artist himself customary in the Italian art trade; the accompanying number refers to his own work archive.