Franco Girosi Paintings

Franco Girosi was born in 1896 in Naples. The artist did not have an academic background, but he brilliantly completed his classical studies in 1915 and attended the free sculpture course at the Art Institute of Naples at the same time. Following the will of his father, who hindered his artistic vocation, he entered the navy, where he reached the rank of captain at 19. He participated in the First World War and in the Fiume battle, during which he was a friend of Gabriele D'Annunzio. The classical studies and the long years spent at sea profoundly marked his poetics and art, since the sea and the love for the ancient fossils and shells were dominant iconographic themes throughout his long career as an artist. In 1923, he moved to Rome, where he rented the studio of Giorgio De Chirico, who, meanwhile, had moved to Paris. In Rome, attending the free school in the artistic circle, he became friends with Fausto Pirandello and Marino Marini. He also came into contact with Mario Broglio, Antonello Trombadori and Giuseppe Capogrossi. He returned to Naples in 1927, where he carried out an intense activity for the local artistic renewal. At the end of the 1920s, he painted numerous Capri landscapes, innovative in terms of volumetric yield and dense colors, aimed by the vision in a motionless and fantastic atmosphere.