Vincenzo Irolli

Irolli attended the Institute of Fine Arts in his hometown with masters Gioacchino Toma, Giuseppe Maldarelli, Antonio Licata and sculptor Stanislao Lista, but from early on he alternated between school and repeated sojourns in the countryside “to dirty canvases so as not to lose the taste for colors.”

In 1878, Irolli's "Portrait of the painter Raffaele Izzo" was noticed by Domenico Morelli, who encouraged him to continue his studies.


In the early years of his artistic activity, Vincenzo Irolli devoted himself to portraits and genre themes drawn from the observation of everyday life, yet he chose to live secluded, initially in Calvizzano, “far from artistic boxing and every coterie,” then in Naples in Vicolo Cariati and ultimately in Vicolo Cagnazzi on the Capodimonte hill.

His first successes began with his participation in the Promotrici di Belle Arti in Naples (1879, 1881, 1883, 1885, 1886), Florence (1883, 1884), Turin (1884), the Esposizioni di Belle Arti in Rome (1883) and particularly in Milan, at the Expositions organized by the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (1886) and the Palazzo della Permanente where, in 1887, his work "Primavera" was included at the price of £1,000.
In Naples, in 1889-1890, he took part in the decoration of the Gran Caffè Gambrinus, designed by Antonio Curri, together with the Neapolitan painters Luca Postiglione, Attilio Pratella and Pietro Scoppetta. It was here that he executed the Piedigrotta-Sogno panel which depicted “a maiden abandoned as Venus and a scugnizzo-Cupido who, instead of touching the lyre, tries his hand at a putipù.”

While he continued to exhibit in Italy, at the Promotrici, he also began abroad: in Paris (1890), Munich (1892) and Berlin (Modern Kunst, 1894) where the painting Il Natale a Napoli (Christmas in Naples) was sold for the extraordinary sum of £23,000.


In 1904 he attended the Italian Exposition in London with the work Resurrecturus; the following year he exhibited in Angers, France, and then at the Parisian Salons, arousing the admiration of the French critic Leon Talboum, who described him as, “the prodigious painter of the sun... In him coexist Velasquez with energetic impetus, Frans Hals in a sentimental key, Manet interpreted with sweetness: all this is concentrated in him, and more!”

Throughout his life the Neapolitan artist devoted himself with equal passion and mastery to oil painting and watercolor.
Culla vuota (Empty Cradle), Le spannocchiatrici (The Corn Huskers), I filosofi (The Philosophers), Tenerezza (Tenderness), Carezze (Caresses), Visita al cane di guardia (Visiting the Guard Dog), Piccola violinista (The Little Violinist), Al sole (Under the Sun) are just a few of the many themes that Vincenzo Irolli depicted in the period between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the twentieth century, when his works began to be reproduced in beautiful engravings, trichromes and four-color prints, published by the Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche of Bergamo.

Meanwhile, in Naples, he had become a member of the Circolo Artistico, founded in 1890, and in 1902 was awarded the title of honorary professor of the Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1919 he married Giacomina Ricciardiello, portrayed by the painter several times smiling, and that same year he exhibited in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) and in Toronto.

In 1920 he was invited to the Venice Biennale, where he attended with Il bagno (The Bath), "Domine, non sum dignus" (Oh God, I'm not worthy), Il banchetto (The Banquet), Quiete domestica (Domestic Quietude), and also participated in 1922 with Pesci (Fish), L'invito (The Invitation), Inascoltato (Unheard), La Trapunta (The Quilt), 1924 (Giorno di regate (Day of Regattas), Il ciabattino (The Cobbler), Il Bandolo (The Skein's End), Pesca abbondante (Abundant Fishing), and finally, in 1926, with Venezia (Venice), Confidenze (Confidences), I coltivatori della vigna (The Vineyard Farmers), which registered a bid of £30.000 from the Tokyo Museum, while La figlia del pescatore (The Fisherman's Daughter) was purchased by Lamberto Ramenzoni, a collector from São Paulo, Brazil.

In 1924 he also participated in the First Biennale d'Arte Meridionale in Bari, and in the 1920s and 1930s, he exhibited repeatedly in solo and group shows in art galleries in Milan (Galleria Pesaro, Montenapoleone, Scopinich), Rome (Mostre di Fiamma), Trieste, and Genoa.

One of Irolli's most important and faithful collectors was Colonel Leopoldo Montanari (Bologna), who, from 1920 on, uninterruptedly followed the artist's production. His works were also purchased by the Neapolitan collectors De Sangro Borrelli, Roberto Gaudino, and Commander Achille Lauro.

Also in Naples, his paintings were acquired by the Museum of Capodimonte Primavera (Spring), San Martino Ritratto di Ferdinando Russo (Portrait of Ferdinando Russo), the municipal administration of Palazzo San Giacomo (Il Corriere dei Piccoli), while in the rest of Italy, his works became part of the public collections of Bari (Pinacoteca Corrado Giaquinto), Florence (Galleria degli Uffizi, Galleria d'Arte Moderna), Piacenza (Galleria d'Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi), Verona (Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Palazzo Forti), Trieste (Museo Revoltella), Turin (Galleria d'Arte Moderna) and many other museums in Italy.

In 1925 his friend and poet Ferdinando Russo dedicated "L'arte di Vincenzo Irolli" to him, while the proem was entrusted to the Venetian writer and historian Pompeo Molmenti, who wrote: “One cannot conceive painters similar to Irolli except in Naples and Venice. Thus in the divine gulf, as in the fascinating lagoons, the great ancient and modern painters welcomed and impressed on their retinas those alternatives, those contrasts, those harmonies of the various lights, which they transfused into triumphs of color on their canvases.”

A few years later, Gerardo Dottori, though a painter belonging to the Futurist current, in addressing Guido Guida, director of the Fiamma Exhibitions (Rome), asked to greet him, “the old Maestro, whose exuberant painting certainly makes today's cachetic and slurred painting of no muscles pale by comparison.”

In 1936 Vincenzo Irolli, who was a fervent Catholic, participated in the Exhibition of Sacred Art, set up in the Dominican Convent in Piazza della Minerva in Rome, with La pesca miracolosa, (The Fishing Miracle), La lavanda dei piedi (The Washing of the Feet), Gesù alla tomba di Lazzaro (Jesus at the Tomb of Lazarus), I due ciechi (The Two Blind Men), La Deposizione (The Deposition of Christ)

During the Second World War, the artist took refuge with his wife in Calvizzano. Two little girls, Tilde and Sisina, lived with them in those years and became models for many of his paintings.

Vincenzo Irolli's last work was the Apocalypse, an image of the Madonna at prayer, which apparently appeared to him in a dream shortly before he was stricken with thrombosis.
He died in 1949, and the following year an inventory was drawn up describing as many as 233 works found in his studio in Vicolo Cagnazzi, Naples, where the first posthumous exhibition dedicated to this great Neapolitan master was held in 1953.