Provenance:
Galleria Mediterranea, Napoli, as per stamp on the reverse;
Studio Franco Girosi, Napoli, as per laberl with signature on the reverse
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Franco Girosi did not have an academic education, but he completed his classical studies in 1915, attending the free course of sculpture at the Art Institute of Naples in the evening. Following the will of his father, who hindered his artistic vocation, he entered the navy, where he reached the rank of captain at nineteen. Classical studies and long years spent at sea profoundly marked his poetry, as the sea and his love for the ancient, fossils and shells were dominant iconographic themes throughout his long career as an artist. After leaving the navy, from 1921 to 1923 he studied landscape with Giuseppe Casciaro and figure with Paolo Vetri at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, beginning to exhibit his works with success. After being in Rome, he returned to Naples in 1927, where he carried out an intense activity for the local artistic renewal. Cerebral painter, cultured and very combative, he was among the first to engage in the "Italian" renewal of the arts in Naples that also passed through the revaluation of Neapolitan painting.
(Freely taken from treccani.it)