Pierre Bosco, descendant of the famous Della Rovere family, was born on January 29, 1909 in Visco, the province of Udine in Italy where he grows up with his seven siblings.
At an early age, he develops an interest in art, probably by contemplating at the church frescoes or religious scenes on the houses’ facades - symbols of popular piety in Italy. When he was eight, his mother buys him a box of paints during a trip to Trieste, a gift that will be decisive, according to him, for his career. At seventeen he earns some money by restoring a Flight into Egypt, a fresco damaged by the storm, and Madonnas on the walls, according to his country’s ancestral traditions.
His father had imagined for the young Pietro a career as an officer of the merchant marine, and thus encouraged him to study to become a telegraph operator officer. He enrolls for his military service in Sardania as a telegraph officer. His lack of motivation for his study and ever growing interest for paintings takes him to Genoa and then Rome where he becomes a religious paintings restorator, learning the secret techniques of the great masters of Art. His early works already show a natural sensitivity to color and a willingness to give volume to images, which will become his artistic signature.
When he first discovers paintings of Cézanne, Pissarro, Gauguin and Rouault, he is convinced that his future is in Paris, where the “bohemian" lifestyle attracts painters and sculptors from around the world. At twenty-two he decides to leave his native Italy and move to Saint-Germain-en-Laye where he attends diligently the schools and painting workshops of the capital. He meets his neighbor, Maurice Denis, and then some of the most well-known artists such as Pierre Bonnard, André Derain, Aristide Maillol, Edouard Vuillard and his brother-in-law, the painter Nabi Ker-Xavier Roussel, who becomes his great spiritual master and with whom he will discover his own artistic personality. This encounter will completely transform the young artist’s experience. Bosco is independent by nature; not very fond of social niceties he stays away from pictorial trends and styles. He is not afraid of social current, but doesn’t accept that it is being imposed on him.