Ettore Tito

When the Venice Biennale opened in 1895, Italy's first great international art show, Ettore Tito was one of the local painters at the centre of it. He won the City of Venice prize at the 1897 edition and a grand gold medal in 1903. He painted the Venice around him, the fish markets, the lagoon boats, crowds in the sun, the ordinary daylight life of the city rather than its famous monuments.

He was not born there. He came into the world in 1859 at Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, but his mother was Venetian and the family moved back while he was small, and Venice held him for the rest of his life. He entered its Accademia di Belle Arti at 12, before he was even old enough to be admitted, and from 1894 he taught painting there for more than 30 years.

His name travelled beyond Italy. In 1915 he took the top painting prize at the great world's fair in San Francisco, the Panama–Pacific Exposition, and in 1926 he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Italy.