Antonio Nunziante, 1956 | Metaphysical art

Italian painter Antonio Nunziante is one of the most important and celebrated painters in Italy today. He was born in Naples 1956, considered an artistic prodigy, having repeatedly experimented with oil paintings at 8 years old. After attaining a secondary school Art diploma in Asti, while demonstrating the maturity of his own painterly hand, he entered at the Fine Arts Academy for two years.

In 1975 his career began to flourish as a professional painter and he returned to Turin, where he completed restoration techniques in Florence. His visits to Italian and Europeans museums enriched his experience bringing him in contact with masterpieces of distinguished painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Originally his painting were characterized by figurative moments expressed with still life, landscapes, female figures and other more surreal approches inspired by the fantasy worlds of Boris and the visions of Dalì. In some work, the romantic and Metaphysical component is extremely prevalent, fascinated by the artistic theories of Bocklin and De Chirico, who remained a constant reference throughout his career.

In 1983 he had the chance to make himself known in United States, exhibiting at the Artexpos in Los Angeles and New York. He also attended the atelier of Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni and in 1985 exhibited in Spello with Pietro Annigoni. The years are characterized by research and experimentation, through conceptual works signed under the pseudonym of Rascal Babaloo. He took part in Bergamo Biennale between 1986-1990. His participation in exhibitions in Tokyo (1990) and at New York Artexpo (1991) furthered his success and international recognition.

There was growing consideration of his paintings in many important institutions through the 90’s and increasingly qualified critics took an interest in him. Nunziante went forward with his research and in those years painted, “Nature Silenti”, an eternal masterpiece of Flemish art, testified in his first monograph printed in 1994. In 1996, at the exhibition “Il valore della figura” his works were shown with some Italian masters such as Boeri, Cascella, De Chirico, Guttuso, Modigliani, Morandi, Marino Marini, Severini and Sironi.

Elements that were to become some of the constants in his work emerged: Metaphysics, Symbolism and Romanticism. That’s the period of “Farmacie Italia”, “Le stanze”, “Gli oggetti” and appears in “The isle od the dead” of Arnold Böcklin, a masterpiece which Nunziante will turn into an isle of love as an ideal space for mind and spirit. Simultaneously he exhibited in Florence, and afterwards in Lugano and Venice twice. The new millenium starts with the painting “Dimensioni parallele”, exhibiting in 2001 at the Boussex-Meaux museum in Paris, on the occasion of the exhibition “Hommage a l’Ile Des Morts”, together with works of Salvador Dalì and Max Ernst.

Inspired by the tragic event of 11 September 2001, Nunziante paints “L’Apocalisse”, in his work the tragedy is opposed to rebirth and challenges crime news with colors, cobalt blue, cadmium red, chrome yellow, greens, purples and oranges, these are the new colors used by Nunziante who gives life to new visions where Metaphysics lets the place to Surrealism in works like “La bellezza ci salverà” and “Atto di forza”.

"The Thinker and the Muse" are the icons of the classical Nunziante - “I dialoghi d’amore”, “Tormento ed estasi”- while works like “I viaggi nel tempo” and “Onirici veneziani” characterize the more inspired metaphysical Nunziante.

Recently, Nunziante has had great success and awards, exhibitions were held in the most distinguished Italian and foreign galleries: Paris, New York, Philadelphia, London and Basel, together with anthological exhibitions in Turin and Rome, records at Sotheby’s and the National Cultural Award Torre di Castruccio. In 2001. He was featured in the exhibition “Dal Caravaggio” at Castel Sismondo in Rimini, where his works were placed alongside those of greatest seventeenth-century masters. With Caravaggio, Nunziante’s painting board enriches with ochre, bitume asphalt and raw sienna.

We’ll find the same colors in the exhibition “Isole del pensiero. A.Bocklin, G. De Chirico, A. Nunziante” held in Fiesole on the occasion of the 11st anniversary of Bocklin’s death, in which his works were shown with some by Arnold Bocklin and Giorgio De Chirico. After his solo exhibition in Bramante Cloister in Rome (“Nunziante. The vision beyond”), he exhibited 40 new paintings in Palazzo Ducale, Genoa (“Landscapes of light”), in conjuction with the big event curated by Marco Goldin “Van Gogh and Gauguin’s journey”, exhibiting with Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Turner, Kandinsky, Wyeth and Homer.

The works from these last four exhibitions in 2011 are considered the highest goals of his career. At the end of 2012 some of these masterworks, together with new ones, won over New Yorkers at the exhibition in Soho, titled 'Works'. At the opening, besides many leading figures of the art field, the Italian General Consule in New York attended, who chose five important works which will be exhibited at the Consulate until June 2013. Another important success marks 2013: his record price at Sotheby’s New York with the oil “Progetto per un viaggio ancora possibile”, awarded at $50.000.