Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, 107, 80138 Napoli NA, Italy
Giuseppe De Nittis was enrolled in one of Naples’ most prestigious schools, the Instituto di Belle Arti (now the Accademia di Belle Arti) in Naples in 1861, but he was expelled from the institute in 1863.
1875
Giuseppe De Nittis.
Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli, 107, 80138 Napoli NA, Italy
Giuseppe De Nittis was enrolled in one of Naples’ most prestigious schools, the Instituto di Belle Arti (now the Accademia di Belle Arti) in Naples in 1861, but he was expelled from the institute in 1863.
Portrait photo of Giuseppe De Nittis.
De Nittis was born in Barletta, Italy, on February 25, 1846. He was the fourth child of Don Raffaele De Nittis and Teresa Emanuela Barrachia. Giuseppe De Nittis was the grandchild of an architect. One of his brothers was Vincenzo De Nittis.
Giuseppe De Nittis first studied under Giovanni Battista Calò in Barletta. His childhood was marked by the premature death of his parents. As a teenager, Giuseppe De Nittis was enrolled in one of Naples’ most prestigious schools, the Instituto di Belle Arti (now the Accademia di Belle Arti) in Naples in 1861, where he studied with Giuseppe Mancinelli and Gabriele Smargiassi. He also attended Mancinelli's evening life classes. In 1863 he was expelled from the institute owing to his intolerance of the teaching methods and artistic characteristics which he found old-fashioned and anachronistic.
Giuseppe De Nittis launched his career as an artist in 1863. This year he exhibited two paintings at the 1864 Neapolitan Promotrice. De Nittis came into contact with some of the artists known as the Macchiaioli, becoming friends with Telemaco Signorini, and exhibiting in Florence.
The same year De Nittis formed the Scuola di Resina together with painters Marco De Gregorio and Federico Rossano and sculptor Anriano Ceccioni. The group sought to approach nature with a new directness. De Nittis was particularly focused on the effect of changing light and atmospheric conditions, and in making studies of clouds.
In 1867 De Nittis traveled to Florence and then on to Paris where became acquainted with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, prominent French painters. The following year he made Paris his permanent home. The painter Jacques Brandon introduced Giuseppe De Nittis to the art dealer Adolphe Goupil and De Nittis signed a contract with him the following year. It called for him to produce saleable genre works.
His home in Paris became a gathering place for Parisian writers, artists, intellectuals as well as expatriate Italians, and there he produced pastel portraits of sitters including Edouard Manet, Edmond de Goncourt, Emile Zola, and Louis-Edmond Duranty.
After gaining some visibility by exhibiting at the Salon the artist returned to Italy where he produced several views of Vesuvius. From 1869 till 1870 he painted popular genre scenes in Rococo dress in the manner of Meissonier, however, he also continued to create landscapes and contemporary subjects.
In 1872 De Nittis moved back to Paris and achieved success at the Salon with his artwork Che freddo! (Freezing!) of 1874. That same year he was invited by Edgar Degas to take part in the first Impressionist exhibition, held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. But Giuseppe De Nittis was not accepted by all of the Impressionists and did not participate in their subsequent exhibitions.
In 1873, probably inspired by Marcellin Desboutin and Edgar Degas, De Nittis experimented with etching, drypoint and lithography. The following year, the artist travelled to London. He produced plenty of paintings with views of London, for instance, Piccadilly (1875). In 1875 he began to use pastel and played a major role in reviving interest in the medium.
De Nittis exhibited twelve paintings in the Exposition Universelle of 1878, at which he showed his Whistlerian Westminster (1878).
Between 1880 and 1883 he exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. In 1881 a major exhibition of his pastels took place at the Cercle des Mirlitons in Paris. He also turned to watercolour painting.
Giuseppe De Nittis was a remarkable artist of the 19th century. He associated with artists such as Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet, and is considered to be among the most important of the Paris-based Italian painters of his time.
At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, De Nittis was awarded a gold medal and later that same year he received the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
After De Nittis' death, his wife donated his paintings to the town of Barletta and they are now gathered in the Pinacoteca De Nittis in the Palace of the Marra in the hometown of the painter.
Nowadays, artworks by De Nittis are held in many public collections, including British Museum in London, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His paintings The Connoisseurs and Return from the Races are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Around the Shade
Return from the Races
The Victoria Embankment, London
Lungo l'Ofanto
Woman on the Beach
At the Tribune during the race
Amazzoni
In the Forest
Sarah Bernhardt as Pierrot
The Serpentine Hyde Park
A Roman Aqueduct
Breakfast in the Garden
La Place du Carrousel, Paris: The Ruins of the Tuileries
Self Portrait
Westminster Bridge
Presso al lago
Nude with Red Stockings
The Place des Pyramides, Paris
A Lady from Naples
The Salon of Princess Mathilde
Promenade Hivernale
Snow Effect
The Races at Auteuil, Paris
A Winter's Landscape
Poplars
The Nannys
Rue de Paris with Carriages
Back From Dance
Face
The Races at Longchamps from the Grandstand
Quotations: "If one day my son would ask me where to find happiness, I would answer: be a painter but also be like me."
Giuseppe de Nittis was a member of the Arts Club in London between 1876 and 1878.
Giuseppe de Nittis was thought to be a man of multi-faceted nature.
De Nittis was in love with Paris, with all its beauty, society life, art and culture. He tried to capture the essence of this ever-changing city and depict it in his images of its beautiful women, bustling streets and even its modern reconstructions.
De Nittis married Léontine Lucile Gruvelle in 1869. The marriage produced a son Jacques, whose godfather was Gustave Caillebotte, a French painter, and patron of the Impressionist artists.
