Attilio Pratella Biography | Oil Paintings

A scholarship allows Attilio Pratella at twenty-one, to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, where he studied with Antonio Puccinelli for two years, his classmates were Mario De Maria, Alessandro Scorzoni, Augusto Sezanne, and Rocco Lentini. Before he went to Bologna, in a youthful rebellion, his surname changed from Pratelli to Pratella.

Attilio Pratella won a second scholarship in 1880, so he went to Naples to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli for a few months, studying with Domenico Morelli and Filippo Palizzi. He spent the rest of his life in Naples and established his own studio. From 1881 until the 1920's, he exhibited uninterrupted in the Neapolitan exhibitions of the Promoter Salvator Rosa.

His favorite subjects were Naples with its markets and animated waterfronts, along with the neighboring hills of Vomero, the island of Capri and the coastline of Sorrento in an Impressionist manner.

He also, like Casciaro and many other active artists in the town of Campania, preferred the technique of the pastel and resumed the themes of the so-called Posillipo School, the purely picturesque appearance and making works of great stylistic perfection. As he matured his landscape paintings were exhibited in the Venice Biennale and in the Paris Salon where he achieved critical acclaim, Later in life he preferred solo exhibitions. Attilio Pratella's sons Fausto and Paolo, and his daughter Ada also became painters.

Art Movement: Impressionism.
Artists Influencing Attilio Pratella: Antonio Puccinelli, Domenico Morelli, Filippo Palizzi.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.