Antonio Ciccone was born in 1939 and grew up in San Giovanni Rotondo, the mountain village of his birth. He was born on a farm family in a small stone cottage behind the Capuchin Friary.
In 1954 he went to Florence to study art in the studios of Pietro Annigoni, Nerina Simi, and at the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts.
From 1963 to 1980 he lived between Italy and the United States. Ciccone has had more than 150 one-man exhibitions throughout Europe and the U.S. and his works are to be found in museums and private collections. He has done numerous portraits, compositions and landscapes using the various techniques of carbon pencil, China ink, oil, acrylic and fresco. One of the world’s foremost portraitists, he is renowned for his exquisite charcoal and acrylic portraits.
From 1986 to 1987 he produced a major show entitled Padre Pio and the Gargano Landscape that traveled England and Ireland.
In 1987 the artist executed the Nativity fresco for the parish church of Ponte Buggianese near Pistoia.
In 1993 an important painting commission for the Cassa Rurale ed Artigiana in San Giovanni Rotondo was completed.
Ciccone’s works are to be found both in museums and private collections. Among these are the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza and the Capuchin Friary in S. Giovanni Rotondo, Foggia; the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, N.Y.; the Guild Hall, East Hampton, N.Y.; the FORBES Magazine Collection, N.Y.; the Dixie Carter Collection, Los Angeles; the Robert D. Schweizer Collection, Arizona, and the Lady Christina Hoare Collection, London.
Ciccone is the recipient of the 1970 Val Arbogast Memorial Prize (Parrish Art Museum, N.Y.), the first prize (1972) Prima Biennale Internazionale d’Arte Sacra (Capuchin Friary, San Giovanni Rotondo), and the 1992 Premio Firenze/Europa (Florence).
The Lydia series by John T. Spike is the artist’s eighth book. Earlier publications include Antonio Ciccone – Vita di Pittore written by Alberto Maria Fortuna (1991); Composizione 1992-1993 with introduction by Giovanni Scarale (1994); Gatti/Cats, text by Roberta Fiorini (1995); Nello Studio with text by Paola Bortolotti (1996); In Search of Padre Pio (1997); Antonio Ciccone’s Padre Pio (1999) by Alberto Maria Fortuna and Metamorphasis by Maurizio Vanni published in 2000.
Antonio Ciccone lives in Florence, Italy, where he maintains his studio.