Francesco Iacurto was born in Montreal on September 1, 1908, and died in Québec City on July 7, 2001. At a very young age, he showed great talent in drawing since he exhibited at Monument National when he was only thirteen years old. In 1992, he took classes with Edmont Dionet and in 1923, he entered the new École des beaux-arts de Montréal where he met Jean Paul Lemieux, Paul-Émile Borduas and Sylvia Daoust, among other artists. After graduating in 1928, he travelled to France for the first time thanks to a scholarship and was mainly influenced by the Impressionist movement. In 1938, he settled in Québec City where he started a series of portraits. In the 50s, he returned to France (1953) and went to Italy (1956) to paint the Vatican Gardens. In 1964, at the request of Antonio Barrette, the Canadian ambassador to Greece, he went to Athens in order to paint a few works of the Greek capital. Then, between 1965 and 1974, Iacurto was an art teacher and was elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1976, he published ‘’Souvenirs ‘’, a luxurious limited edition album whose foreword was written by Robert Choquette.

For his 80th birthday, the Université Laval organized a retrospective of his drawings entitled ‘’ Visages intimes ‘’ and Hugues de Jouvancourt wrote his biography. In 1990, Iacurto was appointed Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and in 1991, he chaired the Symposium de peinture du Carnaval de Québec while Villa Bagatelle of Sillery was presenting a retrospective of his work including 40 oils, pastels, pencil works, red chalk drawings and watercolours. The quality of his drawing and the light emerging from his canvasses expresses the undeniable charm that Québec City and the Charlevoix region had on him.

His artworks can be found in the following collections: Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, National Gallery of Canada, Senate, Assemblée nationale du Québec, Hôtel de ville de Québec and Université Laval.