Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente is an Italian painter. His work shows both surrealist and expressionist references. Clemente was self taught and studied architecture in 1970 at the University of Rome. Following his studies he explored his psyche with the use of psychedelics and traveled to India to experience Hindu spirituality.

Through the 1990s, surveys of Clemente's work were exhibited by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the Sezon Museum, Tokyo. He also provided paintings for the 1998 film of Great Expectations starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. He plays a psychologist in the movie Good Will Hunting starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams.

n 1999/2000, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York organized a major retrospective of Clemente’s work. He has participated in numerous collaborative projects, painting with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol and illuminating poetry by Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, John Wieners, Harry Matthews, and René Ricard.

Portrait photo by Jessica Rosen