Nicola Simbari

Vibrant Visions: The Life and Art of Nicola Simbari

The Italian painter Nicola Simbari is best known for his vibrant and exuberant works created in the impressionistic style. The artist once described his works as entries in a diary as each of them is a reaction to things he saw or felt. His canvases reflect his personal enthusiasm and an enormous zest for life, having an infectious appeal.

After graduating from the Accademia Delle Belle Arti, Nicola Simbari opened his first studio in Rome at the young age of 22. Shortly after his solo exhibition in London, he was commissioned to paint murals for the Italian Pavilion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, which garnered much critical acclaim.

Scenes from Simbari’s childhood in Calabria, such as gypsies, cafes, fishing villages, and the Italian countryside, featured prominently in his early works. Full of pulsating energy and life, his canvases went on to depict Mediterranean landscapes and contemporary European life, but also the scenes of the Southwest. Painting in the semi-abstract Impressionist style, the artist used brilliant colors and vivid tones to create works imbued with great emotion and light. Painting with a palette knife, his works are characterized with great depth.

Simbari's works can be found in numerous museums and private and corporate collections around the world. His paintings are in collections including the Bank of Tokyo and the Christian Dior Collection in Paris; Italian State Railways in Rome; Liberty Company in London; and Tulsa Bank of Commerce, Cincinnati Fine Arts Department, Exxon Corporation, General Mills Corporation, and Pepsico, in America.

The work by Nicola Simbari was described as “thoroughly disarming” by a number of major American and English critics. His works provided a new definition through the intensity of vision and technique.

Nicola Simbari was born in 1927 in San Lucido, Calabria, but was raised in Rome, where his father was an architect for the Vatican. He died in 2012 in Frascati, Lazio, Italy.