FRANZ BORGHESE - UNTITLED

Franz Borghese ( Rome , 21 January 1941 – Rome , 16 December 2005 ) was an Italian painter and sculptor , one of the protagonists of Italian painting in the second half of the twentieth century . In his work, he portrays a turn-of-the-century bourgeoisie with an ironic and imaginative streak. The more cutting and bitter it is, the closer and more empathetic it is to human weakness, through a language and poetics that rise to a universal metaphor.

Biography and works

Franz Borghese was born in Rome on January 21, 1941, to Giacomo Borghese and Giovanna Senesi. He began painting during his years at art school on Via di Ripetta , where Domenico Purificato , Giuseppe Capogrossi , Umberto Maganzini, and Giulio Turcato taught. In 1964, he founded the Group and the eponymous magazine “Il Ferro di Cavallo.” In 1968, at his first solo exhibition, he exhibited the large painting In morte di Luther King . In the same year, his painting Le ombre was accepted and exhibited at the VI Rassegna d'Art Figurative di Roma e del Lazio at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni ; the Pinacoteca Comunale in Rome purchased one of his works. From 1970 onwards, satire and sarcasm began to appear in his paintings: the dramatic painting with its dark and deep tones was abandoned to make way for the first characters wearing clothes and adopting gestures from the 1910s. A new language that certainly evokes more than one parallel with George Grosz , Otto Dix , James Ensor , Mino Maccari and Heinrich Hoerle . In 1972 he dedicated his first studies and drawings to the military and militarism. He painted The Blind . Borghese was deeply influenced by Bosch and Brughel , to whom he dedicated The Concert in the Egg , The Cure for Madness , and The Ship of Fools , but also by Jacques Callot , from whom he drew inspiration for some original perspective solutions. In The Dukes we find Piero della Francesca again. To Hogarth he dedicated the nine paintings inspired by The Rake's Progress . He was still interested in Goya , for his large choral compositions and his crude way of representing violence, and Grosz and Dix, certainly, for their tragic and scathing representation of society. Among his contemporaries he certainly appreciated Longanesi and Maccari . In the 1970s Borghese met Salvatore Fiume , with whom he painted together in 1975, The Condemnation of Christ . Among the main themes in Borghese's work, in addition to those mentioned above, we recall The Spouses , The Chess Game (as he was a skilled and passionate chess player), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , and Imaginary Portrait . Borghese created numerous engravings ( The Horrible Misdeeds of Phantomas , Long Live the War ) and etchings ( Stultifera navis – The Ship of Fools and Other Imaginary Facts 1978), silkscreens, and lithographs. He devoted himself to sculpture starting in the 70s, The New Pets and Eduardo Leaves the Theatre , were the first, followed by Officer and Lady , Roundabout , Photography and The Engineer's Family and in 1984 he created the sculpture, Discreet Charm . From the 1980s are the sculptures, I stilts and Il ritratto immaginario , the portfolio of etchings Add new ti Les amoureux – four etchings by Franz Borghese , the cycle of paintings The Rake’s Progress , revisiting the series by William Hogarth. The personal exhibition at the National Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo dates back to 1986. His passion for the historical period of Napoleon led him to write and draw Waterloo , an imaginary battle , in 1990. The large-scale painting The Painter's Studio or Life is a Dream (working title) dates back to the 1990s; inspired by the research of Cesare Lombroso , he created two pictorial cycles dedicated to the study of the human figure, The Manual of Physiognomy , followed by Appendix to the Manual of Physiognomy . The first studies for the Flying Machines cycle also date back to these years. In 1992, an exhibition of mixed techniques on hardboard and drawings entitled Inventions and Discoveries, Imaginary Portraits and More was presented at Palazzo Braschi in Rome. The portfolio of lithographs entitled Stories and Misdeeds of the Old Government , a tribute to the poet GG Belli, and the etchings from the series All the Men of the Master Plan , date back to 1997. In December 2005, shortly after his last public exhibition at the Refettorio Quattrocentesco of Palazzo Venezia , he died in Rome in his studio on Via della Seggiola.

Bibliography

• Sixth Roman Biennial , ed. De Luca, Rome, 1968.
• Brerarte General Catalogues , ed. Brerarte, Milan, 1972-1980.
• Discanto , edited by Pasquale Scarpitti, ed. SARUS, Pescara, 1973.
• Borghese , edited by Franco Solmi, ed. La Nuova Foglio, Pollenza (MC), 1974.
• Volume of Bolaffi's Reports , report by Virgilio Guzzi, Giorgio Mondadori e Associati, Turin, 1975.
• The new generation , X Quadrennial of Rome, De Luca, Rome, 1975.
• Borghese , edited by Carlo Munari, Galleria Palmieri, Milan, 1975.
• Borghese. Long Live the War , edited by Franco Passoni, Il Gianicolo, Perugia, 1976.
• Franz Borghese, The Flowers of Good , edited by Paolo Levi, Italarte, Rome, 1980.
• Franz Borghese. Mixed Techniques , edited by Franco Simongini, Fidia, Rome, 1981.
• Franz Borghese , edited by Dario Micacchi, Italarte, Rome, 1982.
• Franz Borghese sculptor , edited by Domenico Guzzi, Italarte, Rome, 1985.
• Franz Borghese , edited by Giorgio Bocca, Giorgio Mondadori e Associati, Milan, 1986.
• Franz Borghese , monograph for the personal exhibition at Castel Sant'Angelo, edited by Carmine Benincasa , Rome, 1986.
• Franz Borghese, Waterloo, an imaginary battle, described in 60 pages and 40 drawings , edited by Lucio Cabutti, Il Tetto, Rome, 1990.
• Spirit of St. Louis , edited by Domenico Guzzi, Ed. Bora Bologna, 1991.
• Inventions and Discoveries, Imaginary Portraits, and More . Palazzo Braschi Museum, edited by Franco Simongini, published by Bora, Bologna, 1992.
• The Manual of Physiognomy , with a critical presentation by A. Del Giudice, Il gianicolo, Perugia, 1993.
• Appendix to the Manual of Physiognomy , with a critical presentation by Carlo Franza, Centro Arte, Milan, 1994.
• The Diary of an Egocentric , with a critical review by Giovanni Faccenda, Ed. Bora, Bologna, 2002.
• Borghese. Sculptures , edited by E. De Albentiis, Il Gianicolo, Perugia, 2002.
• Franz Borghese , monograph for the anthological exhibition at the fifteenth-century refectory of Palazzo Venezia, edited by Giovanni Faccenda, Masso delle Fate Ed., Signa, (FI), 2005.
• Franz Borghese. An Anthology of Works, Paintings, Drawings, and Gouaches from 1970 to 2005 , with an essay by Luigi Spezzaferro, Il Gianicolo, Perugia, 2006.
• Camilla Borghese, Who is Franz Borghese?, Italarte, Rome, 2007.
• General Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Franz Borghese - First Volume, Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, 2017.

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