Fiorenzo Tomea (1910 - 1960) Lake Iseo, 1947 Oil on canvas 70 x 90 cm Signature: 'Tomea' on the recto Other inscription: 'Beatrice d'Este 17' on the verso of the frame, with reference to the address where Tomea has lived, in Milan, since 1935 Provenance: the artist's studio; Veneto Banca SpA in LCA Exhibitions: Iseo Prize, summer 1947 (?) Conservation status. Support: 85% (stains) Conservation status. Surface: 95% Originally from a small village in the Cadore region, after working as a street vendor at a very young age Fiorenzo Tomea attended drawing and painting courses at the Accademia Cignaroli in Verona between 1926 and 1928, where he made friends with Giacomo Manzù and Renato Birolli. After moving to Milan in 1928, through Manzù and Birolli he came into contact with the circle of young artists who were more open to the experiences of European art (Francesco Messina, Aligi Sassu, Bruno Cassinari, Domenico Cantatore) and the following year he met the critic Edoardo Persico, who invited him to exhibit in a group show organised by him at the Galleria Il Milione in 1931, followed by a personal exhibition in 1934. The meeting with Persico was decisive in reinforcing the artist's anti-Classicist and anti-Novecento orientation, directing him towards Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting. Precisely in the urgency of deepening his knowledge of the masters of French art and the most recent artistic trends, in the autumn of 1934 Tomea with his friend Sassu went to Paris, where he stayed for six months, frequenting the community of Italian artists living there (Giorgio De Chirico, Gino Severini, Filippo De Pisis, Massimo Campigli). On his return to Milan, the artist defined the fundamental characteristics of his painting in which a series of themes of metaphysical and surreal inspiration (candles, masks, skeletons, chosen as restless metaphors of the human condition) alternated with landscapes and still lifes in which the formal simplification of primitivist inspiration (from Giotto to Carrà) is associated with a free use of colour of clear French origin. (... read more: full details in the pdf catalogue at https://goforarts.com/doc/VB_IT_2_2/Meraviglie_Atto_II_HR.pdf . The catalogue also includes lots not available on online platforms, including many of the most prestigious).