Riccardo Francalancia (Assisi 1886 - Rome 1965)

Riccardo Francalancia (Assisi 1886 – Rome 1965) came to painting after first taking a university degree in political science and then working as a bank employee. The fundamental factor in his artistic development was his assiduous frequentation of the Caffè Aragno, which served as Rome’s true cultural salon in the interwar decades, and of the gallery Casa d’Arte Bragaglia with its ample range of contemporary art.
Francalancia’s first works, in a fantastical vein, are dated 1919. In 1921 Mario Broglio included him in his show Das Junge Italien, which exhibited the works of emerging Italian artists in a number of German cities. He took part in several shows of the Novecento movement during the 1920s, and in 1929 won the critical acclaim of Roberto Longhi.
Artistically close to Donghi and Trombadori yet not without points of contact with the Roman School of Scipione and Mafai, in his landscapes of Umbria, Lazio and Rome Francalancia conveys the stupefied immobility that is the typical attribute of the “magical realism” of the interwar years, and not only in Italy.