Luigi Rocca was born on December 26, 1952 in the Friuli region of Italy. His father, a teacher, understood that this youthful talent should be encouraged from the start. When he was five or six years old, Luigi shaped plaster and clay reproducing many characters belonging to a child's world. He also loved little insects he found in his garden, often capturing them and studying them for realism.

In 1966, at the age of thirteen he took the first prize in an international fair for young painters at Jesolo. When he was fifteen , he attended art school at the Art Academy where he completed his apprenticeship. Rocca participated in exhibitions with great success in Lignano, Sabbiadoro, Jesolo, and along the Adriatic Coast winning two first prizes and two third prizes.

Painters from the Renaissance through Impressionism fascinated the artist. Looking at the past, with a special eye for the present, he painted figures, flowers and landscapes of great simplicity and interest. Flowers were especially important to him as they breathed the same atmosphere of tenderness and veiled sensuality in which his female figures were enveloped. Beginning in the early 1980's, Rocca joined his classically trained technique with his intrest in America, specifically New York, and his study of American Photorealists; producing stunning images of American icons-diners, taxis, and cityscapes.

Luigi Rocca, born in Italy, the cradle of art, brings the emotional charge of the Old Masters to the newness of the Americas, showing us the warmth and potency of a compelling city. America has never looked so inviting.