Raffaele De Grada is introduced to the art world by his father, painter and decorator.
Following the family's transfer to Switzerland, he attended the Dresden and Karlsruhe Academies. From 1919 he settled in Italy, where, two years later, he exhibited in Florence, deserving the attention of critics and the public. In 1926 he took part in the first exhibition of the Italian “Novecento” and in the second in 1929. This movement brought together the most famous Italian artists who looked at classical antiquity, purity and harmony of forms as models, also returning to traditional genres. De Grada favors the natural landscape, experimenting with new formal and expressive solutions, also aimed at the interpretation of moods, passing through the lessons of Corot and Cézanne.
The View of Lecco clearly shows the influence of the latter, in the scanning of the landscape in parallel planes, in the geometry of the composition and in the shapes of the houses, mountains and slopes, with very defined colors.
The work received the second prize at the IV Quinquennial Exhibition of Lecco, agricultural-industrial exhibitions of local products, which followed one another from the 1920s to the 1940s and which in 1937 also had an important section dedicated to the Lecco landscape.

Location: room 7