About the Artist   Franco Magnani was born in 1934 in Pontito, Italy, a hilltown not far from Florence which was destined to become an important focus of his later life. His childhood was a contented one in this small village whose inhabitants grew their own food and lived self-sufficiently.  Unfortunately, life changed tragically for Franco when his father died in an accident in 1942, and for the entire hilltown when the war brought the Nazis who pillaged Pontito.  Franco’s mother went to work in the fields, while Franco and his four siblings took care of the cooking and chores. After the war, Franco became a furniture maker and woodworker, but could not make a living in the declining village of Pontito. He left his home town to work as a cook in the Italian Riviera, and then as a cook on cruise ships.  After travels throughout Europe and the Caribbean, he decided to fulfill his dream of seeing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.    In 1965, Franco made the long journey to California, but between the hard restaurant work and some problems with immigration, he became seriously ill and his doctor prescribed an extended rest.  During this time, Franco began having astonishingly vivid and detailed dreams of Pontito, visions he could actually see before him.  He felt called to paint the scenes of his childhood home, and was amazed to find that he could do so, without ever having had any formal artistic training.  He began to create hundreds of “memory paintings” of the buildings, streets and fertile surroundings of his pre-war Pontito, with a perspective unique to him.  The scenes he imagined were so real and three-dimensional that Franco would turn his head to “see” them from different angles as he painted, and he experienced the sounds and smells around him.  This desire to capture the Pontito of his youth became the driving force of his life from this time forward. Franco’s artistic creativity and love of Pontito was supported and shared by his beloved wife, Ruth, herself an artist.  Married in 1975, they owned the Pontito Gallery in San Francisco’s North Beach until Ruth passed away in 1988.  Franco closed the gallery and went back to work as a cook to make ends meet. The Exploratorium held an exhibit of Franco Magnani’s work as “The Memory Artist” in 1989 which highlighted Franco’s extraordinary memory by placing his paintings side-by-side with recent photographs of the same scenes, which he had not seen for 20 years yet had recreated from memory with incredible detail.   Franco is also featured in Oliver Sacks’ book, An Anthropologist on Mars, and Dr. Sacks lectured about Franco and his memory for a program honoring Franco at the Medici Palace in Florence, Italy.  Exhibitions of the memory paintings have also been shown in Lucca and Pescia, Italy, and a traveling exhibit is visiting several cities in the United States and Canada.  He continues to paint Pontito and the surrounding area as well as local California scenes, and does specialized woodworking projects. Franco lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Franco Magnani

1700 El Camino Rl. 21-16

South San Francisco, CA. 94080

Home phone: 650-756-7053

Fax: 650-992-4459