Franco Gentilini is an Italian painter who was born in Faenza, on 4th August, 1909. He began working at a very young age as an apprentice cabinet maker and carver.
Between 1921 and 1925, he attended four evening corse in industrial design and plastic at the town hall school “Tommaso Minardi”. He met John Romagnoli, the painter and Professor of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna.
In 1928, he made his first trip to Paris and in 1930, he participated at the XVII Biennial of Venice. In 1932, he moved permanently to Rome and began going frequently to the historical Caffè Aragno where he got to know literary artists such as Cagli, Mucci, Falqui, Sinisgalli and de Libero, with whom he cooperated.
In 1933, he came third place for the Rubicone Award, while in 1934, he ranked first place. In this period, he participated at Biennials, Quadrennials as well as producing public works, works at the easel and compositions inspired by folk festivals.
Gentilini’s painting technique is made of a happy marriage between painting and drawing with a preparatory base made from river sand. The figures represented in his works are: Cathedrals, Baptisteries, city walls, jugglers, landscapes, strange players , women with spool-heeled boots, bicycles, carts and animals (cats and lions).
Gentilini is defined as the artist of the ‘Joie de vivre’; a joy, however which is sick from loss in a world shattered by war and the unfortunate premonition of an emergent mass society.
During the mid-fifties, his figures began to transform towards essential geometrical designs, becoming two-dimensional and full of chromatic and rythmic colour effects.
He died in 1981, following a brief illness.
