Left fatherless when he was only 6, Giovanni Lomi was entrusted to the care of a peasant family living in Ardenza, in the province of Livorno. His love of nature and animals comes from his years in the country. As a young man, he was forced to work to support himself, and despite his passion for drawing, was not able to attend art school. Still, he found time to draw wherever and whenever he could, always and constantly.

Since photographic techniques did not yet exist, Giovanni portrayed the departed beloved with a "fading away" effect, using the then-fashionable method of portraying a person who was absent. Because he'd never had an art teacher, he went to the studio of Adolfo Tommasi in the 1920s to get Tommasi's opinio...