* LEON MORROCCO RSA RGI (SCOTTISH b. 1942)
PIZZERIA DE CIRO MARGELLINA

oil on canvas, signed and dated '05
framed and under glass

image size 104cm x 99cm, overall size 114cm x 109cm

Note 1: The Royal Scottish Academy honoured Leon Morrocco by staging a major exhibition "Leon Morrocco: Long Road Home" (30th July - 28th August 2022). The RSA website reports: Timed to coincide with the artist’s 80th birthday (and the 2022 Edinburgh International Arts Festival) this major survey exhibition of one of our longest-standing Academicians celebrates the breadth of Leon’s prolific career. Although Leon was born in Edinburgh he has not lived in Scotland since 1979. This exhibition charts the ‘long road home’ to showing in the capital this summer.
Note 2: Leon Morrocco RSA was born in Edinburgh in 1942. The son of Scottish-Italian artist Alberto Morrocco RSA OBE (1917-1998), Leon spent his childhood in Aberdeen and Dundee where his father taught at the art colleges. On family holidays to Italy Leon and his father would go out into the hills around Rome and Alberto would paint whilst Leon would draw. In 1959 Leon enrolled at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, before continuing to the Slade School of Art, London (1960-61), and Edinburgh College of Art (1961-65). After art school, he was awarded the Andrew Grant Scholarship and an Italian Government Scholarship to the Accademia di Brera, Milan. Allowing him to travel around Greece, Turkey and Italy, these awards catalysed the itinerant lifestyle that would define his career. Elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy at the unusually young age of 29, Leon was Lecturer in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art from 1965 to 1968 before taking up a similar position at Glasgow School of Art from 1969 to 1979. Driven by a desire for travel and adventure, in 1979 he left Scotland to become the Head of Fine Art at the Chisholm Institute, Melbourne. Leon and his family would live in Australia for 12 years. Buoyed by gallery support, in 1984 he left academia and for the first time focused solely on his own practice. Following several successful exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, in 1991 Leon and his family returned to the UK, settling in North London. Leon Morrocco's work is held in numerous notable public, corporate and private collections, including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, H.R.H Princess Margaret, Leeds Art Gallery, The Nuffield Foundation, and Queensland Art Gallery. Leon Morrocco's most recent solo show was "Terre Et Mer" staged at the prestigious Open Eye Gallery (Edinburgh) 26th July - 24th August 2024.