ANTONIO POSSENTI ©

© Antonio Possenti by SIAE

ANTONIO POSSENTI

Antonio Possenti was born in Lucca in 1933. He grew up in a cultured family and already drew and painted as a child. After finishing his classical studies, he graduated in Law and taught law at secondary schools. At the same time, he devoted himself to his great passion, art, starting work as a satirical cartoonist and achieving a certain notoriety thanks to the cartoons published in the weekly newspaper 'Il Mondo'. One event in particular marked the watershed in his life: it was his meeting with Chagall, which took place on the Côte d'Azur in 1957, after which he decided to devote himself completely to painting. His works are true 'fabulous tales' generated by his dreamlike vision of reality, a vision that Possenti develops through careful observation of the 'human comedy'. Possenti immediately achieved great success with the public and critics, to the point that by the end of the 1960s he was considered one of the most talented artists working on national soil. Since then, he has exhibited his works in the main Italian and foreign galleries, including the Galleria d'Arte Piero Della Francesca in Arezzo, which began representing him in the late 1960s and in which he participated in important thematic exhibitions and group shows. The Aretine gallery also organised a memorable solo exhibition of Possenti's work in 1976 and published numerous graphic works, lithographs and engravings by the master between the 1970s and 1980s. In the following years, he received important recognition from critics and exhibited in some of the major European galleries: in addition to Piero Della Franceca, Il Milione, Gianferrari, Appiani Arte 32 in Milan, Marescalchi and Forni in Bologna, Davico and Biasutti in Turin, Il Traghetto in Venice, Poggiali and Forconi in Florence, Aminta in Siena, Philippe Guimiot in Brussels, Rutzmoser in Munich, East West Gallery in London, Art Diagonal in Barcelona, etc.). He took part in numerous international exhibitions, including Arte Fiera in Bologna, Cologne, Milan, Art Basel in Basel, F.I.A.C. in Paris, Los Angeles Art Fair in Los Angeles, Art Miam, New York International Art Fair, Tuyap in Istanbul, Foire d'Art in Ghent, Arco in Madrid, Stockholm, St'Art in Strasbourg, BART in Barcelona. He also exhibits in solo shows in prestigious public venues: Muse degli Uffizi, Sala d'Armi of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Reggia di Caserta, Tour Fromage in Aosta, Palazzo Ducale in Massa, Castel dell'Ovo in Naples. His works can be found in important private and public collections. Attached to his homeland but tireless traveller, self-taught, in his work full of colours emerges a penchant for fabulous storytelling, a dreamlike and poetic vision of reality. He died in Lucca in 2016.