Artists

Richard Piccolo

Italian, born 1943

Richard Piccolo’s sweeping Italian landscapes and mysterious allegorical figure paintings. A classicist when it comes to subject matter, Piccolo imbues his paintings with a modern sensibility that derives from his talent as a master colorist and his skill as a draughtsman.

Piccolo's ability to make the old new again, to create an aura of timelessness, is particularly evident in his paintings. His approach to this long-standing pictorial subject is to present an image that is drawn from traditional art historical precepts but is nonetheless a distinct rendering of his own inspiration. Piccolo’s work includes sweeping vistas of the hills and valleys of the Italian countryside around his home in Umbria, as well as several allegorical still lifes. The power of his palette is evident in “La Strada”, where the cool blue-greens and vibrant pinks and oranges create a heightened reality. He presses the golden fields and eggplant-colored hills up against the teal-blue sky, pushing the clouds towards the viewer. This composition creates a sense of urgency—the same feeling one gets when viewing storm clouds on a horizon.