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Nicola Simbari
is considered by many to be Italy's most important living artist. A painter
of semiabstract impressionist works; he is a stunning colorist who favors
brilliant tones, richly layered with a palette knife. Like the great
impressionists of a century ago, Simbari's paintings are drenched in light
and energy, but provide new definition through his intensity of vision and
dramatic technique.
Born
in Calabria, Italy, Simbari was greatly impacted by the natural setting of
his Mediterranean world: the wide sea, intense sky, and vivid flowers. As a
young child, he moved with his family to Rome where his father worked as an
architect to the Vatican. The City's Renaissance masterpieces and the
artistic treasures of the Sistine Chapel so moved Simbari that, before his
13th birthday, he decided to study art and enrolled at the Accademia delle
Belle Arti.
At
22, he opened his first studio in Rome. Influenced by the sights and sounds
of his childhood, Simbari's early works featured gypsies, cafe settings,
fishing villages, and rustic scenes of the Italian countryside.
The
youthful artist knew success almost immediately, and within months of a
one-man show in London, he was awarded the coveted commission to paint
murals for the Italian Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. He
solidified his place in the art world with his show "Le Cirque,"
which skillfully reproduced the same excitement on canvas as can be felt at
an electrifying circus performance. The show was highly acclaimed in Paris,
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. "When I paint, I'm like a
writer," Simbari states, "I must have something to say. My
paintings are like entries in a diary because they are all reactions to
things I have seen or felt."
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