Giovanni Bruzzi, the great grandson of the 19th-century Italian
landscape master Stefano Bruzzi, began painting at the age of nine.
The Paris Years Bruzzi studied under Rodolfo Margheri at the Academy of
Fine Arts in Florence and had his first personal exhibition at Ottone
Rosai's Galleria L'Indiano there. He worked in Paris during the 1960s,
where Marc Vaux organized an important exhibition of his work at the
Galerie du Foyer des Artistes in Montparnasse. Bruzzi's work from the
Paris period includes paintings of his friend, legendary jazz drummer,
Kenny Clarke.
The Gambling Years To support his family during the early years of his
artistic career, Bruzzi took jobs in the gambling underworld of Italy -
working as a "banker" in the illegal casinos of Rome and Florence. With
those years well behind him, Bruzzi is very candid about his early
associations with Italy's underworld. His paintings from this period
feature colourful portraits of the gamblers, cardsharps and mobsters
who befriended him as a young man.