Settembrini, Franca

untitled (detail)

Franca Settembrini, untitled (detail), ca 1990, oil on canvas, 155 x 286 cm, photo : Claude Bornand, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne

Author

Settembrini, Franca,

(1946–2003), Italie

Biography

Franca Settembrini (1946–2003) was born in Florence, Italy. She was admitted to the paediatric department in the psychiatric hospital of San Salvi, Florence, when she was 12 and stayed in this establishment for 29 years.

 

In parallel, from 1976 to 1986 she attended La Tinaia, a workshop for artistic expression. She was subsequently placed in various facilities in the region. Returning to Florence in 1995, she rejoined La Tinaia, where she continued to work from then on.

 

Franca Settembrini executed monumental compositions with instinctive mastery, using rapid gestures. She depicted female figures characterised by large hands and an abundance of hair which she adorned with flowers, bows and crowns of thorns. 

 

She outlined with a brush her subjects in black, then filled them in with flat application of bright colours, using gouache for sheets of paper and paint for large-format canvases.