Biography

CALCAGNADORO Antonino, painter (Rieti 1876 – Rome 1935). His father, Cesare, was a decorator painter. Beside him the young Antonino began his apprenticeship with the decoration of the Umberto I boarding school in Rieti in 1887. His training continued between 1890 and ’93 always in Rieti alongside also Giacomo Casa, author of the frescoes at the Vespasiano Theater and at the Palazzo della Prefettura, and to Giovanni Pieroni, who takes care of the decorations of Villa Maraini.

The first paintings from 1894, a self-portrait and an episode from the siege of Numanzia (Rieti, Museo Civico).

In the late nineteenth century the ties of friendship began with some artists, including Duilio Cambellotti, Adolfo De Carolis, Camillo Innocenti. His commitment as a decorator is always intense. In 1904 he won an award at the Florence Exposition for the painting The unemployed, which marks the painter’s openness to the themes of social realism.

Called to arms at the outbreak of the war he began painting patriotic paintings and parchments for charity. He participated in the National Exhibition in 1917. Of painting “Visions of War”, to which Oppo, Prini, Crema and De Angelis also exhibit. At the end of the conflict (1918-19) he participates in the Children’s and Flowers Exhibition of the Society of Amateurs and Cultures with two paintings, Papà non torna e Rose.

In 1924 he began teaching painting at the Free Nude School at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1925 the Mario Giacomini Gallery in Rome presented a vast personal exhibition of the painter with good critical and public success.

He participated in 1930 in the First International Exhibition of Sacred Art, where the king bought Flight of angels, today at the Quirinale. The ornate chair designed at the Liceo Artistico in Rome wins and in 1931 he restores the counter-facade of the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome by painting The Coming of the Holy Spirit on a fresco by the Florentine Jacopo Zucchi of 1576. In 1935 he was named Grande Crown officer.