Emilio Greco was one of the key figures of post-war Italian sculpture. Born in Catania, Sicily, he was apprenticed to a stonemason and sculptor of funerary monuments at an early age. Between 1948 and 1967 he taught sculpture in Rome, Carrara and Naples, and during the 1950s his own work began to receive serious recognition. Strong parallels exist between Greco's approach to drawing and sculpture – his two favoured disciplines. His graphic style is extremely sculptural in its evocation of volume, and its concern with exploring and defining the space and relationships between forms. Conversely, the surfaces of Greco’s heads are often scored with lines recalling the cross-hatching characteristic of his vigorous yet elegant ink drawings.