Giuseppe Amisani
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7 December 1881[1][2]: 5
- Mylius Prize, 1908
- Fumagalli Award, 1912
Giuseppe Amisani | |
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 Giuseppe Amisani, Self Portrait, 1900 | |
| Born | Giuseppe Amisani 7 December 1881[1][2]: 5 Mede Lomellina, Lombardy, Italy |
| Died | 8 September 1941[3][2]: 5 |
| Education | Accademia di Brera, Milan |
| Awards |
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Giuseppe Amisani (7 December 1881 – 8 September 1941) was an Italian portrait painter of the Belle Époque.
Amisani was born on 7 December 1881 in Piazza Mercato (now Piazza Giuseppe Amisani) in the comune of Mede di Lomellina, near Pavia in Lombardy, northern Italy. He studied at the technical institute of Pavia, where he failed the technical drawing course;[4] he then studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan under Cesare Tallone and Vespasiano Bignami.[5] He won the Mylius prize of the Academy for his painting l'Eroe ("the hero") in 1908,[1] and in 1911[6]: 208 or 1912[7] won the Fumagalli prize for figure-painting with his portrait of Lyda Borelli. From then on he concentrated almost exclusively on portrait-painting;[5] his landscapes of the Italian Alps, of Rhodes and of Tunisia also attracted interest.[1][8]
Amisani was internationally famous in his time. He spent several years in Argentina and Brazil,[4] and travelled also to England, France, North Africa and to the United States.
Works
Many of Amisani's portraits are of women. Among them are La Teletta, in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna of Milan;[9] his Ritratto di Lyda Borelli, in the São Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil;[citation needed] and Signora in grigio, his portrait of the actress Maria Melato,[1] now in the Musei Civici di Monza.
Amisani exhibited at the twelfth Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia (later known as the Biennale di Venezia) in 1920.[10]: 39 [11]: 89
In 1924, at the peak of his career, he was invited to Egypt to execute decorations at Ras al-Tin, the royal palace of Fuad I of Egypt. While there he painted a portrait of Farouk, then a small child.[4] In 1926 Amisani was commissioned by the publishers of L'Illustrazione Italiana to paint landscapes in Rhodes. In the following year he exhibited North African landscapes in London.[4][12]
A self-portrait was shown at the seventeenth Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte in Venice in 1930, and later bought by the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.[13][14] Other works are in museums in Bari,[15] Piacenza,[13] and Lima, Peru.[2]
