ATHOS FACCINCANI
geboren 1951
BIOGRAPHY
As a child he already devotes many hours to drawing and painting, but he has to be very careful and do it in secret, in the cellar, because his mother is deeply opposed to the practice of anything that can be considered artistic. To do his homework and study he gets up at four in the morning, because the afternoon, secretly and without his parents' knowledge, is dedicated to art: he works as a small apprentice to artists such as Guidi, Seibezzi, Novati; masters who not only teach him the various painting techniques, but also give him the courage to pursue his passions and to believe in his own talent. It is by working alongside them that Athos understands that art cannot help but be an integral part of his life, and that he wants to become a painter.
After graduating, Athos began to devote himself to painting full time. His early works in expressionist style often portray dark characters bent by the weight of suffering. To deepen his study of the figure, he entered the world of prisons, outcasts and psychiatric hospitals. Athos was able to make the suffering of others his own and transmit it on canvas. The young artist began to sell his first works and have his first exhibitions. It didn't take long for someone to notice the strength and expressive intensity of his paintings and commission more important works and offer him increasingly prestigious spaces in which to exhibit.
At the end of the 70s Athos tackles the most important work of his early career: he is commissioned to hold an exhibition on the Resistance; his Personal Exhibitions receive the visit of the President of the Republic Sandro Pertini who, struck by the strength of the feelings that Athos' paintings transmit to him and complimenting him for having represented the war without having taken a position, other than that of a man of extraordinary sensitivity, names him Cavaliere della Repubblica. For the artist this is a great confirmation from a professional point of view, but from a human point of view he has to face a period of internal crisis because dealing with so much pain and suffering has deeply disturbed him. For almost a year he will not go near an easel again.
The breaking point opens a new phase for the artist: having eliminated the dark colors from his palette, and having rediscovered the joy of living, he begins to paint again, looking at the world with the eyes of a child. He prefers landscapes that allow him to focus on nature, which he represents as generous and luxuriant. There is also a radical change in his style, which becomes clearly of impressionist derivation, using pure and bright colors to repeat themselves in every painting with the same guidelines: the light, the high sun, the simple story. Not knowing his artistic past, his inspiration would seem almost naive, pure, belonging to someone who has only known the beauty of life. In reality, Faccincani has indeed had the opportunity to know the ugliness of the world, but he has decided to contrast it, and not reproduce it, with his painting. Furthermore, a careful eye cannot fail to notice that, despite the festive colors and the countless flowers, his "gardens" always contain some dark corner.
With his painting Athos has bewitched the public and critics, his works have ended up in the homes of Hollywood stars as well as in the homes of those who have to dip into their savings to be able to afford a Faccincani. He has exhibited, in addition to the most beautiful places in Italy, in London, Vienna, Paris, Chicago, New York, Zurich, Madrid, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hamburg, Monaco, Tokyo, Monte Carlo, Sofia, Hong Kong and Singapore. He has also received countless awards during his forty-year career, among the latest in Rome, as European Personality, in Ischia the Ischia Friends award and in Naples the Albatros award.