Carlo
Siviero

1882−1953

Biography and information

Carlo Siviero (Naples, 22 July 1882 - Capri, 11 September 1953) was an Italian painter.

He was born in Naples and at the age of 17, overcoming family resistance, he indulged his artistic passion by enrolling in the evening drawing school for workers in Naples, where he was a pupil of Tommaso Celentano. He then attended the Institute of Fine Arts where he was a pupil of Vincenzo Volpe. In 1901 he enrolled in the Academy's Free School of Nude.

After devoting his very first paintings to themes of the countryside, the sea and workshops, he turned his attention to faces and figures, following in the Neapolitan footsteps of Antonio Mancini and Michetti, and in his last years devoted himself to sculpture.

In 1909 he went to Holland to study the great masters of northern Europe and at the same time made landscapes and portraits which he exhibited in The Hague. He took part in important exhibitions: those of the Società Promotrice di Napoli and Amatori e Cultori di Roma, the Venice Biennale (1912, 1920, 1922, 1930) and the Quadriennale di Roma (1935, 1952, 1956). A silver medal winner at the International Exhibition in Barcelona (1911), he was later appointed Academician of San Luca (1916). He was also the author of a number of editorial texts, the most recent of which were "Questa era Napoli" and "Vincenzo Gemito".

In the latter part of his life he gradually withdrew from exhibitions to devote himself more to teaching, which he did at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, also in the role of director. He died in 1953 in his villa on Capri.

A man of remarkable communication skills, he wrote critical articles, essays and monographs such as the one on Vincenzo Gemito. In his book "Questa era Napoli" (This was Naples), he recounts in an extremely evocative way life in the places of a still romantic Naples together with the famous characters of Neapolitan art of the time.

Luca Postiglione, talking about him in a precious little book entitled "Disegni a carbone" (Charcoal drawings), says that he was a "painter, writer, polemicist and one of the most caustic and delightful conversationalists I have ever met".

His works are in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Rome, the "Renzo Valcarenghi" collection in Milan, the "Galleria d'Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi" in Piacenza and in "La Collezione d'Arte del Sanpaolo Banco di Napoli".