American by birth, Italian by citizenship, Nordic by vocation, Tuscan by figurative experience, Gregory Blanche is a reserved painter with rare public appearances who, despite his young professional age, achieves a highly expressive quality. He began in his early twenties in an exhibition in Caprese Michelangelo and has often participated in group shows in Florence, where he lives and works. Trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, he has received recognition, and even a critics’ prize in Bolgheri in 1996. But these appreciable credentials do not suffice to express the coherence of his pictorial discourse, sustained by a technical skill of high quality.
Gregory expresses himself in a variety of themes, but remains firm in style. At home in the company of established Tuscan artists of the likes of Riccardo Saldarelli, Walter Falconi and especially the magic Sergio Nardoni, Blanche has acquired valuable trade secrets while preserving intact his own inclinations which nevertheless vary from the figure, in his paintings both realistic and theatrical, to landscapes, robust and sober, well-built and poetically both exacting and evocative, and finally to still lives. These are perhaps the highest point in his painting, embellished with radiance (Caravaggesque), and revealing lens-like perfection. They are detached, yet positively enchanting with an intimate Nordic atmosphere echoing in the nuances of light (his reverence to Jan Vermeer).
(translation from the Italian)
Pier Francesco Listri
Selected Exhibitions
2022
MFA Graduate Fine Arts Open Studios, April 23, American Industrial Center, San Francisco, CA
MFA Thesis Exhibition, April 7 – 16, The Wattis Institute, San Francisco, CA
2021
MFA Fine Arts Virtual Open Studios, online at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2020
8%, online at San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
BFA Exhibition, online at San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
2019
Il Melograno, Livorno
In Villa, Rosignano Solvay, Italy
2018
solo exhibition, Floritudine, September 6 – October 8, Sala delle Eroine, Palazzo Comunale, Pontassieve, Italy
2017
Per Claudio Carotenuto, Palazzo del Comune Vecchio, Cecina, Italy
2016
Collezione Carotenuto, Palazzo del Comune Vecchio, Cecina, Italy
Galleria La Saletta, Cecina Mare, Italy
Galleria Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy
solo exhibition, Of Elvis, Van Gogh and Flowers, January 11 – February 26, 2016, SACI Gallery, Florence, Italy
2012
Gruppo Donatello, Florence, Italy
2010
Arthur T. Kalaher Fine Art, Southampton, NY
Galleria Via Larga, Florence, Italy
Chiantidee, Palazzo Consigliare, Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, Italy
Fuochi di Primavera, Gruppo Donatello, Florence, Italy
2009
solo exhibition, Un pittore americano di Toscana, Gruppo Donatello, Florence, Italy
Immagina Arte in Fiera, quartiere fieristica di Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Casa di Dante, Florence, Italy
2008
Sambuca, un ponte il suo fiume, giardini pubblici, Sambuca, Italy
2007
Gallerie Amsterdam, Carmel, CA
2006
Kertesz Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
2004
Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997
Ken’s Art Gallery, Florence, Italy
1996
Arte 86, Florence, Italy
1995
Renzo Spagnoli Arte, Florence, Italy
La Stanza delle Maschere, Sala Comunale Topical, Montespertoli, Italy
1993
Formato Ridotto, Galleria Palazzo Vecchio 2, Florence, Italy
Il Vero – Non Vero, Studio Palazzi, Spoleto, Italy
1989
Arte, Scienza e Società, Museo Michelangiolesco, Caprese Michelangelo, Italy
Awards
1996
Premio della Critica, Concorso di Pittura Estemporanea, Bolgheri, Italy
Related experience
2000
translator/teaching assistant, Silvano Campeggi
1998
translator/teaching assistant, Roberto Innocenti
1989 – 1994
studio assistant, Sergio Nardoni
1989 – 1990
studio assistant, Walter Falconi
1989
studio assistant, Riccardo Saldarelli
Education
MFA (Fine Arts) (in progress): California College of the Arts, San Francisco, 2020-present
BFA (Painting): San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco
Studio Arts College International, Florence, Italy