Franco Sarnari

Franco Sarnari was born in Rome on March 3, 1933, and represents a significant figure in contemporary Italian art, particularly within the artistic movement known as the Gruppo di Scicli. A self-taught artist with a natural predisposition for drawing from childhood, Sarnari developed his artistic training through direct experience and autonomous study. Between 1954 and 1957, he attended a three-year course in advertising, which enriched his understanding of visual and communicative dynamics. In 1964, in Rome, he founded and organized "Il Girasole," a self-managed collective that brought together artists from diverse expressive currents, demonstrating a vocation for experimentation and creative collaboration. In the early 1970s, Sarnari decided to move to Sicily, to Scicli, in the Gerrantini district, where he cultivated a profound and conscious pictorial research. This relocation marked a decisive turning point in his artistic practice, allowing him to immerse himself in a cultural and landscape context that deeply influenced his stylistic evolution. Between 1987 and 1989, after developing the "Controluce" cycles dedicated to Monet and Pollock and returning to "Frammenti," Sarnari created the "Cancellazioni" cycle, which includes significant works such as "Flagellazione (da Piero della Francesca)," "Ebbrezze," and "Chiesa di Santa Maria di Ispica." In 1989, he was invited to direct a painting chair at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, a recognition of his importance in the Sicilian artistic panorama. His first installation, "La Palla Pazza," was exhibited at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in October of the same year. In 1993, he was invited to the XIII Quadriennale d'Arte in Rome, confirming his recognition at the national level. In 2003, the Senate of the Italian Republic acquired one of Sarnari's works for the permanent collection of Palazzo Madama in Rome, together with other works by the Gruppo di Scicli, testimony to the institutional value recognized in his work. In 2006, he was included in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Sicily. Franco Sarnari died in Scicli in 2022, at the age of 89, leaving a significant artistic legacy characterized by continuous research, a profound connection with Sicilian territory, and a determining contribution to the Gruppo di Scicli, a movement that represented one of the most important expressions of contemporary art in Italy.