Francesco Musante was born in Genoa on 17 February 1950. After graduating from art school and attending the Turin Albertina Academy of Fine Arts branch, he enrolled in Philosophy at the University of Genoa and also attended painting courses in Carrara.
He began his artistic career in the 1960s with abstract experimentation influenced by Pop Art and Robert Rauschenberg. He later moved towards figurative work, drawing inspiration from Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession. During the 1980s he increasingly focused on graphic art and began introducing fairy-tale characters into his paintings, developing the poetic and immediately recognisable visual world for which he is known today.
Musante has taken part in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad since the early 1970s. His work has been presented in museums, civic galleries and international events, including exhibitions in Berlin and Paris. Alongside painting and graphic art, he has illustrated books of stories and fairy tales and collaborated on television and design projects. His practice also extends to sculpture and stage design.
Selected exhibitions and projects
Over the course of his career, Musante has exhibited extensively throughout Italy and internationally. His exhibitions have explored themes of matter, space, imagination, light and narrative. His work has appeared in institutional and museum contexts as well as private galleries, and his distinctive imagery has also been applied to illustration, sculpture and special commissions.
His artistic universe combines memory, poetry, humour and fantasy, inviting the viewer into a dreamlike world populated by delicate figures, handwritten words and visual stories.
