After an initial training in Ferrara with the painter Angelo Longanesi, who taught him the first rudiments of drawing, Giovanni Battista Crema moved to Naples in 1889, where he enrolled at the Academy under the guidance of the old Domenico Morelli  and then Michele Cammarano. He then moved to Bologna to finish his studies. In 1903 he settled permanently in Rome where the initial preference for social subjects, typical of the Neapolitan way, was diluted in a symbolism with a divisionist approach close to the results of Gaetano Previati. In 1907 he had a personal in Rome at the Società amatori e cultori di Belle Arti. In 1906 he was present at the International Exhibition in Milan, in 1908 he took part in the Quadriennale in Turin. In Rome he also participates in the great International Exhibition of 1911 and in the three Biennials of 1921,23 and 25. At the outbreak of the First World War Crema was called to the front, an experience that left traces in his production after 1920. Ferrara, in 1922, and Naples, in 1928, dedicated two large personal exhibitions to the painter that consolidated his fame. During the Second World War he was involved by the Ministry of the Navy as an official designer, embarked on the warships of the Italian Royal Navy.  His extraordinary war reportages, were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1942.