Borghese Franz

«Nowadays only few can tell stories: someone describes, many imagine, ever so many believe (believe) to invent. Franz Borghese has created not only his typology of  characters, nearly his bestiary, but his “idea of men”… The “big scenes story" of Borghese remains balanced between the aristocracy of culture and the popular anthropology. Here we meet the cunning fellows and the idiots, the refined persons and the plebeians. But it is always a tale, pages of a novel, loose sheets… an "invented time" for siting the yesterday and today (and tomorrow too) vicissitudes of mankind… This is present because - let’s say it - has an universality going beyond fashions: and even he makes fun of them, he flouts them» (Paolo Rizzi)

Franz Borghese was born on January 21, 1945 in Rome. In 1957 he registers at the High Schol specialized in the arts in Via Ripetta. His teachers include Domenico Purificato, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Umberto Maganzini and Giulio Turcato. He began to paint and wander places and leading figures in Roman intellectual life. In 1964 he founds the group and the homonymous magazine “Il Ferro di cavallo”, and a few years later he produced the experimental painting-film “La grande mela” (“The big apple”), with Daniela Romano, Giorgio Fasan and many others.  The film, with a neo-expressionist flavour, describes a consumerist society, its alienations and its alternatives. It is screened in Rome, in Via del Babuino and at the XI Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto.

In 1968 he held his first exhibition in Rome. On that occasion he meets Giovanni Omiccioli and Marcello Muccini, with whom he shares a passion for chess.  Though this first private exhibition is not a success, on the evening of the closing day the sports columnist Ennio Viero purchases three paintings: he is the artist’s first collector. In the same year, the American gallery owner T.W. Burger arranged a private exhibition in his Chicago gallery, and one of Borghese paintings is exhibited at the VI Rassegna d'Arti Figurative of Rome and of Lazio at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Then Rome’s Pinacoteca Comunale purchases one of his works. In 1969 satire and sarcasm made their appearance in his work, as well as the first characters, that will make it possible to draw parallels between his style and that of George Grosz, Otto Dix, James Ensor, Mino Maccari ed Heinrich Hoerle. A year later he held his first exhibition in Milan, at the “Il Cannocchiale” in via Brera. Dino Buzzanti writes a flattering column about him in the “Il Corriere della Sera”. In 1975 he exhibited at the X Quadriennale in Rome and, aided by Salvatore Fiume, he painted the large format  “La condanna di Cristo” (“Christ’s Judgement) for the Vatican Museums.

Personal exhibition follow one another, not only al lover Italy, but abroad too: New York, Madrid, Caracas, Vienna, Amsterdam, Bruxelles. His works can be found in public and private collections worlwide. 

Franz Borghese passed away unexpectedly on December 16, 2005 in his studio in Rome.

Main Public Exhibitions

XI Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto

VI Rassegna d'Arti Figurative, Rome

X Quadriennale Rome

Musei Vaticani

Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome

Palazzo Braschi, Rome

Piemonte Artistico Culturale, Turin

Tour Fromage, Aosta

Fondazione Carnevale Viareggio

Galleria T.W. Burger, Chicago

Atelier Jacob, Paris

Galleria O+G+Grafic, Munich

Galleria Harms, Mannheim

Galleria Budford House, New York

Galleria Seiquer, Madrid

Centro de Arte Euro Americano, Caracas

Galleria Zentrum, Vienna

Galleria Soufer Gallery, New York

Galleria Bastien Art, Brussels

Galleria Disegno, Madrid

Palazzo Venezia, Rome

(an extract from artist's official website: http://www.franz-borghese.it/)