On the occasion
of Palazzo Strozzi’s exhibition Americans in Florence. Sargent and the American
Impressionists (see review in TF 159), Kevin Huizenga, a leading American comic
artist and graphic novelist, has created a graphic novel, Alla
Prima, based on the experience of the young American
painters whose work is seen in the exhibition. This story within a story, the
reader is taken on a tour of an exhibition by a fictitious American painter,
Glenn Ganges (a mainstay of Huizenga’s work), who comes to Florence to study
art along with a group that strongly recalls the fun-loving students of Frank
Duveneck (1848-1919), known as the Duveneck Boys. Set in the cosmopolitan world
of Florence in the years after the unification of Italy, the graphic novel
takes the reader into the boisterous world of these young artists as they
discover new painting techniques and learn from the Old Masters.
Named after the
Impressionist technique of painting ?wet on wet,’ the novel will be first
released for iPad, followed by Italian and English printed editions, by
publisher Comma 22. The project was generously sponsored by two American
patrons, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem.
