Gianfranco Ferroni (1927 - 2001)
Portrait of Roncaglia, 1960
Signed lower right, on the back label Galleria Mutina, Modena.
Gianfranco Ferroni was born in Livorno in 1927. During the war years, he moved with his family to Milan; there, he began his self-taught artistic training, later moving to the Brera Academy, where he met artists such as Crippa and Dova. In the 1950s, he embraced Existential Realism, focusing his pictorial interests on the depiction of everyday life. His most distinctive and recognizable style, however, developed in the late 1960s following a period of isolation spent in Viareggio. In the 1980s, he joined the Metacosa movement, becoming one of its most significant representatives. In 1993, he received the Premio Presidente della Repubblica from the Accademia di San Luca; in 1994, a large retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna. He died in Bergamo in May 2001.