Biography from The Artisfun Gallery:
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Niccolo d'Ardia Caracciolo was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1941, the
only son of Ferdinando Caracciolo, Prince of Cursi. His mother
was a Fitzgerald of The Island, near Waterford [now Waterford Castle],
where he was reared. The medieval castle was the seat of
his mother’s family, the Fitzgeralds, who first came to Ireland in the
Norman invasion of 1160. The Italian title came from his father
who belonged to a very old Neapolitan family whose title, Principe di
Cursi, can be traced back to 1165 and that of Duca di Grottaglie to
1660.
Niccolo was educated in England at the Oratory School,
Reading, from where he went to Florence to study art after Pietro
Annigoni had seen a sample of his work in London and expressed the
opinion that he definitely had talent which ought to be
developed. At the age of nineteen, Niccolo studied with Signorina
Nera Simi, a demanding teacher who believed in giving her students a
firm grounding in drawing, not permitting them to pick up a paintbrush
until their third year. His wonderful draughtsmanship bears eloquent
testimony to her teaching.
He kept a base there for the rest of his life traveling back and forth
to Ireland. He established a practice painting landscapes of
Italy and Ireland working in oil and tempera. From 1975 to 1978,
he lived at Rosemount House, near Moate, County Westmeath where he
painted many scenes of the surrounding countryside and exhibited at the
Lad Lane Gallery in Dublin in 1978.
Niccolo was also a
distinguished portrait painter and carried out numerous
commissions. Among his more notable commissions are Lord Iveagh,
the writer J.P. Donleavy, Jean Kruger, Anthony Bygraves, Sir Marc
Cochrane and family and Ib Jorgensen and family. He was a great
admirer of John Singer Sargent and described his own portraits as ‘post
Sargent’ in manner.
In 1979 he had a solo show at the King
Street Galleries in St James, London. He also exhibited in London
at the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibitions and at the Royal
Portrait Society. He first exhibited in Dublin at The Royal
Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1982 and in the same year at the Solomon
Gallery, Dublin. In 1983 he was elected an Associate member of
the RHA and in 1984 was elected a full member. He is today still
honored through the Don Niccolo D'ardia Caracciolo RHA Medal given
every year.
In 1964 Caracciolo was one of the painters chosen to
paint a replica of the Sistine Chapel for the scenery of the film on
the life of Michelangelo "The Agony and the Ecstasy".
Niccolo
d'Ardia Caracciolo died near Siena, Italy in a road accident in 1989,
and was buried at Bunclody, County Wexford, Ireland.
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