jayme del rosario | sketchblog

Milan born painter Pietro Annigoni studied and lived most of his life in Florence where he studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti taking classes in painting, sculpture and engraving. Though he was popular for his evocative landscapes, he enjoyed great success as a portrait painter painting prominent figures such as Pope John XXIII, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Queen Elizabeth II.  

Annigoni’s style is greatly influenced by the great Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance though he learned the art of painting in tempera grassa (ie, “fatty tempera”) while studying under the Russian painter Nikolai Lokoff.  What makes the tempera paint fatty are particles of oil mixed in with the egg tempera. The oil allows the paint to have slightly more blending effects though the medium remains to follow the drying properties of pure tempera rather than oil paint.

I am not sure whether these portraits were painted in pure tempera grassa, pure oil paint or a mix of both mediums, regardless they are exquisite.  

Born in 1910 and being a realist painter at a time when realism and traditional painting was a dying art form, Annigoni signed the manifesto of Modern Realist Painters in 1947. The group consisted of 7 painters who were openly opposed to abstract art and other styles and movements of art in Italy at the time. Despite representational art’s fall from grace, Annigoni continued to produce work that bore the style of Italian Renaissance portraiture executed with technical bravado and enjoyed worldwide success in the face of modernism and post-modernism. Nelson Shanks of Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia and Michael John Angel of the Angel Academy in Florence were both Annigoni students.

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Images courtesy of Artron
Annigoni on Art Renewal, more images
Angel Academy of Art
Studio Incamminati