Clemente, Francesco (1952– )

Italian painter. He was at the forefront of in the 1970s. His use of hand-drawn imagery, rendered in an expressive, naive, and colourful style, was a reaction to the high-tech approach of Photorealism. In 1980, at the Venice Biennale, his eclectic imagery drew international attention and contributed to the development of . The erotic, gesturing figures that characterize his work are frequently mutilated and often images of himself, as in Midnight Sun No VI (1982; private collection).

Self-taught, Clemente moved to Rome, Italy, in 1970 to study architecture. It was there that he became involved with the Italian transavanguardia neo-expressionist movement. In 1981, Clemente moved to New York City permanently, but has divided his time, since 1982, between Italy, New York, and Madras, India. In New York, he rapidly expanded the scope of his work, producing his first large-scale oil paintings, and participated in numerous collaborative projects, creating a group of paintings with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and illuminating poetry by Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, and John Wieners, among others. Roman art and Indian mystical and folkloric references have provided the inspiration for much of his work.