Enzo Cucchi is an Italian painter and a central figure in the Transavanguardia movement of the 1980s Italian Neo-Expressionists. His large-scale oil paintings are characterized by their simple, almost primitively depicted images rendered in vivid, dramatic colors, and was once described in the New York Times as an “artist who waves his paintbrush like a magician’s wand.” A writer as well as a self-taught artist, he often exhibits his work along with poetic verses he himself has composed. Born on November 14, 1949 in the province of Ancona, Italy, Cucchi went on to befriend other artists of the Transavanguardia movement he met in Rome, such as Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, and Mimmo Paladino. His work has been exhibited at prominent institutions worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His first retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1986. Cucchi lives and works in Rome and Ancona.