Franco Pedrina Biography
In the lagoon city he became friends with the literary critic Aldo Camerino. Having survived tuberculous meningitis, he decided to dedicate himself completely to painting and in 1962 he moved to Rome. Carlo Belli and Tonino Guerra frequented it. With Don Gianni Todescato, he discovers Piero della Francesca's masterpieces live. In 1966 he held his first important exhibition in the Zanini Gallery. Through the sculptor Livia Livi he met Pier Paolo Ruggerini and, through him, Giulio Bergamini, in whose Milanese gallery he exhibited in 1968. In 1970 he moved to Milan, where he still lives and works in two spartan studios, alternating stays in the countryside origin. In 1975 he was listed in Bolaffi among the painters of the year. Scholars such as Marco Valsecchi, Renato Olivieri, Liana Bortolon, Roberto Tassi, Pier Carlo Santini and Roberto Sanesi appreciate it. An assiduous reader (from Dostoevsky to Tolstoy, Flaubert, Mann, Kafka) and culturally up to date, Franco Pedrina uses the vernacular of his homeland as a koinè. His painting, in the wake of Venetian colourism, starts from Kandinsky and Mondrian and, through the Secession and futurist ideas, reveals thematic affinities with Graham Sutherland and then develops an autonomous language, aimed at a passionate approach with nature.
