Francesco Clemente

Francesco Clemente was born in Naples, Italy in 1952.His work investigates philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness and the self.

A key figure in the Italian Transavanguardia movement, Clemente became known for his unique vision for a truly multicultural art. Unshy of working collaboratively, Clemente has created art with contemporaries such as  Warhol and Basquiat as well as with craftsmen in his beloved India. He has also published many works in conjunction with poets such as Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Rene Ricard. “I believe there is such a thing as an imagination shared by the different contemplative traditions,” he has said. “My goal is to collect images and references from these traditions and connect them with the emotions from the present-day, and common experiences.”

Clemente’s work is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others. His Works on paper were the focus of a full retrospective organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1990, which travelled to the Royal Academy of Arts, London. A career retrospective was held at the Guggenheim, New York in 1999, which travelled to the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2000.