Achille Talarico

Calabrian painter, born in Catanzaro on 23 January 1837. He made his first studies in Naples under Professor Mancinelli and then moved on to the Academy of Fine Arts, where, after two years of study, he competed for the half-figure painted from life and obtained the first prize and many others as well during the four years of study.

The “Portrait” is a special peculiarity of Talarico, which he treats in his own way, and for which he deserved a real triumph at the Promoter Exhibition in Naples, in 1881, and at that of Brera in Milan, in 1889.

The main works of Talarico are the following: “After a dance”, purchased in 1867 by the Capodimonte Pinacoteca; “The portrait of the architect D’Amora”, awarded, in 1870, with a silver medal by the jury of the Agriculture and Commerce Exhibition held in Salerno; “The Sannini spouses”, exhibited at the Milan Exhibition, in 1882.

After all, the Talarico always exhibits some of his works every year at the Promoter of Naples, where he obtains good successes, as is not much, when he exhibited a portrait taken from a life-size dead man.

He is Honorary Professor of the Royal Institute of Fine Arts and Knight of the Crown of Italy. About one of his “Portrait of a Lady”, exhibited in Rome, in 1883, De Renzis writes in his ‘Artistic Conversations’:

«I have never seen and met the lady painted by Talarico, nor do I know any other work of the painter; also the portrait known among the best. A woman not beautiful, middle-aged, plump, seen from the face boldly, without luxury of clothes, without backgrounds, in the truth of incipient fatness, was a difficult art problem, resolved by the painter with unparalleled panache and confidence ».