Art Brokerage specializes in the orignal paintings of Marco Sassone. Marco Sassone was born in Campi Bisenzio, a Tuscan village, in 1942. The family moved to Florence in 1954, and there he met painters Ottone Rosai During this period he supported himself by selling watercolor sketches of Florence to tourists, many of whom were Americans, which increased his fluency in English.Later, he studied with painter Silvio Loffredo, professor of art at the Accademia in Florence, a pupil himself of the Austrian master Oskar Kokoschka. In 1982 Marco Sassone was knighted by president of Italy, Sandro Pertini, into the “Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic” and received a gold medal award from the Italian Academy of Arts, Literature and Science. By the late eighties, Sassone had become increasingly concerned with social themes. In March of 1994, his exhibition “Home on the Streets” opened at the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco later traveling to Los Angeles and Florence, Italy. Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about his work: “There is true technical brilliance here…In the drawings, his technique seems to discover fresh descriptive possibilities each time out.” Home on the Streets traveled to Los Angeles in 1996 and Florence, Italy in 1997, where the exhibition was mounted in the Cloisters of the Santa Croce Church. Paola Bortolotti, art critic for La Nazione, writes: “The persistent theme does not carry a denunciation of a social problem, but it is rather the pretext to pour forth onto canvas the urgency of the brush strokes.” 1997 Marco Sassone received a commission to create a 200 square foot mural in downtown San Francisco. The finished work comprised of five canvasses dedicated to the theme of Il Palio is installed in February of the following year.In May, 2001, the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco inaugurated the exhibition, “Master and Pupil,” works by Oskar Kokoschka, Silvio Loffredo, Marco Sassone. The Palazzo Ducale Museum in Massa-Carrara, Italy presented his retrospective exhibition in March-April, 2002 with the publication of a catalogue written by Massimo Bertozzi. The exhibition was reviewed by La Nazione, Florence and La Repubblica, Rome. In 2005 Marco Sassone relocated his studio to Toronto. The artist is currently working in Toronto and Italy on his intensely envisioned landscapes and cityscapes, known for a heightened sense of color and his powerfully expressive gestural style.