North African Connections

De Francia’s first travels to North Africa in the 1950s left a lasting impression; he would return, physically or imaginatively through his art, for many decades to follow. His depictions of Algeria and Tunisia memorialise everyday moments in the lives of ordinary people – shoe-shine boys, builders or bird-sellers at their work; storytellers at their tales. They never exoticise; animated by the same impulse towards human connection that is found in his portraits or his depictions of workers in Genoa or Provence, they resonate perhaps even more with our contemporary moment than the era in which they were made.