GIACOMO GROSSO Cambiano, 1860 - Turin, 1938 Portrait of Maria Mele, Marchesa Fracassi Ratti Mentone di Torre Rossano Traces of signature at lower right Oil on canvas, 150X100 cm Provenance: Sotheby's Munich 1990, lot no. 355 Rome, private collection Giacomo Grosso trained at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin under Andrea Gastaldi, a master who exerted a profound influence on him in the formation of taste and the construction of pictorial language. Grosso's subsequent academic career, which saw him as a teacher and reference figure for numerous generations of students, was flanked by a profitable artistic activity, characterised by a constant balance between technical rigour and modern sensitivity. His production, mainly focused on portraits for private commissions, distinguished itself for its formal elegance and ability to render the characters and social status of the subjects represented with fine psychological introspection. He was in fact a favourite painter of the aristocracy and upper middle class and soon became a leading figure on the national and international art scene. He participated many times in the Venice Biennale and exhibited in numerous venues in Europe and overseas, including Paris, Vienna, Dresden and Buenos Aires, receiving wide critical and public acclaim. At the beginning of the 20th century he stayed in Argentina several times, where he was invited to portray members of the local bourgeoisie and, in 1907, he took part in the First Exhibition of Italian Art in Latin America organised in Buenos Aires, further consolidating his international reputation. An artist of refined technical skill, Grosso was able to interpret with acumen the tensions and transformations of the society of his time, oscillating between a controlled naturalism and Symbolist suggestions.