The traveller wearing a broad-brimmed hat, which Granchi uses as a metaphor for himself as he journeys through life, sets out on a steep path that will lead him to discover a sleeping giant, an allusion to the natural and instinctive forces that, although imprisoned in the rules of good manners, appear ready to burst forth in their exuberant vivacity.
Chaser of Giants
Andrea Granchi
Florence, 11 June 1947
After graduating from the Accademia di Belle Arti in 1969, Andrea Granchi debuted with large-scale paintings and was one of the first in Italy to make art films, curating also a number of international art film festivals during the 1970s. He presented films and art works in the Venice Biennale in 1978 and 2011, the Milan Trienniale in 1981, and the Rome Quadrienniale in 1986, following by numerous other, more recent participations.
Since the late 1970s, in painting Granchi focuses on themes of travel, shadow, and giants, as a complex metaphor for existence striving to master values and sublime ideas, presented in a personal neo-Romantic, visionary and narrative artistic language. In 1990-1991, his stint as a substitute teacher in the Accademia’s School of Decoration led him to rediscover fresco painting, which he adapted to a three-dimensional effect that enabled him to create unprecedented accords between painting and sculpture. Since 1992 Granchi teaches at the Accademia in Carrara, at first decoration but then painting since 1995, a position he later held also at the Accademia in Florence. Besides teaching, he also works at restoration, which he learned from his father and practiced with him for many years. Both in the anthology exhibition held in the Pinacoteca Civica in Volterra and in his most recent show in 2019 in the museum of sacred art in Abbadia San Salvatore, the artist presented a selection of works carefully chosen to set up a dialogue as equals with the masterpieces of the past on view in those museums.
