The incredible true story of how a street-fighting petty criminal, who was kicked out of school at fourteen, became one of Australia’s most celebrated and successful portrait artists.
Raised amid poverty and violence on the poor streets of Melbourne, Vincent Fantauzzo was just a boy when he accepted he would either die very young, become a gangster or end up behind bars. Tormented by a troubled home life and dismissed as a simpleton at school where he struggled to read and write, Vincent projected a violent and frightening persona as a means of self-protection. Inside that tough exterior, however, lived a thoughtful, sensitive and creative boy whose only wish was to be loved – and to one day break free of the intergenerational dysfunction he seemed doomed to inherit. He could never have imagined how far his dream of a better life – and an uncanny knack for drawing – would take him.
