252 - Franco Gentilini

Franco Gentilini Gentilini Piazza San Marco 1957 Mixed media (oil/sand/cement) on rough canvas. 81 x 100 cm. Framed. Signed and dated 'Gentilini 57' in light grey lower left. - Verso titled "Piazza San Marco" on old paper label on stretcher, inscribed "per Parigi", and with Italian customs stamp. - Narrow vertical retouching lower left, otherwise in very fine condition. Provenance Private ownership, Italy Exhibitions Paris 1957 (Galerie Rive Gauche), Vingt peintures de Gentilini, cat. no. 3, full-page col. ill. 4 Literature Alain Bosquet, Franco Gentilini, Bologna 1979, p. 25, no. 40 with full-page ill. Born near the town of Ravenna, famous for its early wall paintings and mosaics, the painter Franco Gentilini initially worked as a ceramicist and in the field of wall painting - together with Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, among other projects. Living in Rome from the early 1930s, he quickly gained artistic renown as part of the group centred around the Caffé Ragno, which served as a gathering place for artists belonging to the Scuola Romana, such as Cagli, Mucci, Falqui, Sinisgalli and de Libero. However, Gentilini also frequently stayed in Venice during this period and, as a favourite artist of Carlo Cardazzo, founder of the Galleria Cavallino, his work was exhibited together with that of De Chirico, Carrà, Fontana and Morandi. Cardazzo was among the art dealers favoured by the Guggenheim family. The works that Franco Gentilini created after World War II are particularly cherished by private collectors; in the 1950s he worked on a series of “cathedrals”. The special charm of these works is founded on the graphic reduction of their motif - as in the case here, which features the iconic Venetian architecture of St Mark's Square with a view of the basilica as well as staffage figures - and the haptic effect of a fresco.