Francesco Musante

FRANCESCO MUSANTE

Francesco Musante was born in Genoa in 1950. He graduated from the artistic high school and then decided to apply for the Philosophy University in Genoa, attending, at the same time, painting course at the Academy of fine arts of Carrara. By the 1960’s he had already made his first artistic experiments, mostly about colours and abstractionism, and had started to participate to group exhibitions, artistic contests and prizes. His works of this period and of the early 1970s are influenced by the north American artistic movements, such as Pop art and Rauschenberg’s Combine Paintings. In 1973 he debuted with a personal exhibition at “Il Quadrifoglio Gallery” of La Spezia. In the same year he started his activity as engraver, managing to be mentioned in the catalogue “Incisioni Originali Italiane e Straniere dell’800 e Moderne” by the Libreria Antiquaria of Dino and Paolo Prandi. Besides La Spezia, Musante attended also the “Sperone Gallery” of Turin, where he had the chance to meet the exponents of Arte Povera. In the 1970s his art changed, moving towards figurative painting, especially on woman figures, with a strong inspiration from the artists of the Wien Art Nouveau.

From the 1980s he moved his interest to graphic and watercolours: the second ones in particular became very important, as watercolours allow him to experiment and give to the image a sort of fantasy atmosphere, as it is possible to notice in his characters, which seems to be taken from a fairy world and then put in a world full of objects and words. Flying girls with a heart in their hands run after coloured clouds; male figures that run away from colourful rain made of little hearts. Sometime a suspended wire becomes a symbol between reality and fantasy or between day and night. That’s why these small hearts, that seems to fall from the sky, change into symbols of universal love, the kind that is able to contaminate everything and change the destiny of the world. In Musante’s art, reality, fantasy, no-sense and mystery are mixed together in an almost surreal world.

In 1984 he taught Engraving Techniques in a professional course of the European Community. In 1987 he organized a personal exhibition in Vezzano Ligure. In 1992 his artworks were exposed at the Italian Embassy of Saudi Arabia, not only artworks but also illustration: as a matter of fact, he drew for several books and fairy tales books. From the 1970s he also has had the chance to exhibit abroad: Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, and New York (Museum of Modern Art of NY).