Armando De Stefano

Cumana, 1954, mixed media on paper, 41×52 cm

He was born in Naples in 1926. He started drawing as a boy during the Second World War, portraying American soldiers to earn some money. He then trained at the Academy of Fine Arts with Emilio Notte. In 1947, he founded the "Gruppo Sud" with six other Neapolitan painters, expressing adherence to a realistic-social painting style. The years from '56 to '61 saw him engaged in an area reminiscent of materic and abstract expressionism. In '61, he returned to realism, creating the so-called "grand cycles": from the Inquisition to Masaniello, from the Neapolitan Revolution of '99 to Marat. Together with Maurizio Valenzi, he exhibited in 1989 at the Palais d'Europe in Strasbourg works on the French Revolution, which was celebrating its bicentenary. From 1950 to 1992, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, also painting various rooms there. Today, he is one of the greatest Neapolitan artists, despite his age, exhibiting his works both at PAN (Palazzo delle Arti in Naples) and at the MADRE museum. In 2015, he was awarded the prize for figurative arts dedicated to Maurizio Valenzi within the Sebatia-Ter event.