Mario Francesconi (1934) - Animale

Lithograph on 5-color paper – work bottom right hand-signed and bottom left numbered – 50 x 70 cm – Year 1973 – limited edition – copy 83/120 with certificate of authenticity – unframed – excellent condition – private collection – purchased and originated in Italy – shipping by UPS – SDA – DHL – BRT – TNT
Biography
He was born in 1934 in Viareggio, where he still lives today. Beginning with his first solo exhibition in 1959, he developed an artistic path that traverses several phases and is often rooted in a passion for poor and recycled materials. His artistic practice frequently moves between painting, sculpture, collage, and installation, and borders on the neighboring realms of poetry and literature, also thanks to friendships and professional relationships with some of the most important Italian intellectuals of the world in the second half of the last century, from Emilio Villa to Cesare Garboli, from Leonardo Sciascia to Mario Luzi, from Cesare Zavattini to Pier Paolo Pasolini, from Alfonso Gatto through Sandro Penna to Venturino Venturi. After early figurative experiences, in the early sixties he moved to Rome, where he visited the galleries La Salita, La Tartaruga, and San Luca and exhibited works presented by Emilio Villa.
Since 1965 he has been back in Tuscany. He regularly moves in the literary circle of the Viareggio Prize, a source of stimulating acquaintances from Neruda to Longhi, from Pasolini to Buzzati, from Carlo Bo to Mino Maccari. In Florence he formed friendships with Romano Bilenchi, Mario Luzi and other writers. In 1966 he worked with Mino Maccari on designing the stage sets for Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich's Naso for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, whose direction was entrusted to Eduardo De Filippo. In 1971 Romano Bilenchi dedicated to him the story “Father and Son,” which appeared in “L'Approdo” and later in the book “Amici” by Einaudi. The 1970s are marked by frequent travels to Paris, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, where he came into contact with artists such as Wilfred Lam, Hans Hartung and Henry Moore. In the meantime he moved to Florence and set up his studio on Via Maggio. The Florentine studio, which to this day represents an important place for the artist’s activity, impressed Mario Luzi with “the great abundance, the overflow of color that spills from the stacks of accumulated canvases.” During this period he dedicated a significant body of work to his dog Tobia, about which Manlio Cancogni wrote a story published by Pananti. In 1998 he worked on a cycle of pictures consisting of three triptychs, dedicated to the themes of Mystery, Life and Death and exhibited in the pre-refectory of the Vallombrosa Abbey. After a long acquaintance with the poems and plays of Samuel Beckett, from the year 2000 onward he would create hundreds of works dedicated to him, including many fully signed artist’s books, paintings, collages and various materials. In 2004 the Gabinetto Vieusseux of Florence organized a conference on Francesconi’s work in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, with a presentation among others by the director of the Gallery of Modern Art in Florence, Carlo Sisi; the conference proceedings were published in the journal “Antologia Vieusseux.” On the occasion of the 90th birthday of Mario Luzi, Francesconi dedicated to his poet friend a long series of portraits “from memory,” including graphics, paintings and collages, some of which were subsequently donated to the Gabinetto Vieusseux – Archivio Contemporaneo A. Bonsanti in Florence. In 2008 he, together with Maicol Borghetti, shot the film Osmosi.