In the summer of 1981 David Hollowell spent three months in Italy painting a commissioned work for a wealthy patron, who shall remain anonymous. This patron had always greatly admired the nearby frescoes painted by Piero della Francesca. The patron's son had seen Dave's work in New York, and had asked him to come over for the summer to paint a fresco-like work on a renovated wall of his father's villa outside Arrezzo.

Dave spent the summer painting, the 10 x 20 foot wall, using the patron's family and friends as models, while the adjacent renovation of the villa continued on and off (mostly off). It was while Dave was in Arrezzo for an all-day street festival that the renovators knocked down his nearly finished wall by mistake. Unfortunately Dave had to be back in the States a few days later, and he managed to salvage only a couple of the heads. He promised the patron to return another summer and redo the work, but somehow he never went back. Fortunately he had photographed the work only the day before it was destroyed, and that photograph and the heads here are all that remain.

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Mixed media works