His jokes were seldom caustic or off-color, like Claes Oldenburg's or Tom Wesselman's, and never Swiftian in their misanthropy, as James Rosenquist's political murals could be.
Growing up in the town of Busto Arsizio, about 40 minutes' drive northwest of Milan, he first discovered modern art at 13, when he happened on a book, Pop Art, by critic Lucy Lippard and discovered the work of artists like Andy Warhol and JamesRosenquist.