Born in Conegliano Veneto in 1924, Mauro Francini comes from a family of artists whose activities date back to the Middle Ages. He completed his classical studies while participating as an actor and set designer in the activities of the theatre of the Messina University.

The war took him to Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. In 1947, in Florence, he interrupted his studies in architecture to devote himself completely to painting and in 1951 he moved to São Paulo, Brazil, called by Adolfo Celi, as a set designer at the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. There he met Clara Heteny, also a painter, whom he married and with whom he had two children, Marina and Lando.

In Brazil, he became part of the “Cono Sur” artistic movement with solo and group exhibitions, as well as participating in the São Paulo Biennials and the Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Salons.

In 1959, he moved to Paris on a French government scholarship and in 1962 settled in Milan where, from 1967 to 1982, the year of his death, he taught History of Set Design and Makeup at the Civica Scuola d’Arte Drammatica del Piccolo Teatro.

Works by Mauro Francini are part of the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, the State Art Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Montevideo, as well as private collections in Brazil, Italy, France, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Peru, the USA, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and Hungary.