Boats and gondola, Venice, 2001 - oil on canvas 25 x 35 Painting

Francesco Siclari was born in Campo Calabro on 2 July 1940. His passion for painting was born to him at the tender age of 5. During the preschool period, he starts scribbling in the notebooks that his mom buys for him to do his homework. From 7 to eight years old, during the summer season, when with a small group of companions he went to bathe behind the port of Villa San Giovanni (a town in the province of Reggio Calabria), he asked his friends to pass in front of a studio of a painter, failing which he joined his friends. If the painter was present he would stop to admire him until his friends returned from the beach. In 1952 he moved with his family to Piedmont, on the outskirts of Turin. From an early age, he had an innate passion for painting. He has always drawn, then moved on to ink, tempera, and watercolor. The oil was inaccessible, the materials cost too much. Francesco was well aware of the sacrifices that the family made to keep him at his studies and I never dared ask for a lira for the purchase of oil paints. One day, July 2, 1961, was his birthday. his brother Domenico gives him 10,000 lire. Immediately Francesco goes to Turin, goes to the `Garignani Belle Arti` shop in Via Lagrange, the destination of sporadic visits to the center, where he left his eyes and heart attached to the shop windows, and this time he goes inside with a thousand emotions. He buys a cassette for 7,200 lire. Finally, he can be painted in oil! The time available to him, after studying, is dedicated to oil painting. The painted canvases are two, three, four ... seven .... One day Domenico, entering the room where Francesco is painting, says to him: `But you are always painting, but do some shows!`. It was not a note from his brother, but only an invitation to take the first steps in the field of art.