Giuseppe De Nittis
1846–1884 · Kingdom of Italy · Impressionism, Salon art
The story
When the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Paris in 1874, one of the painters on the wall was Italian. Giuseppe De Nittis, from Barletta in the south, had five works in the show, invited by his friend the painter Edgar Degas. He was the only Italian in that famous group, though the other Impressionists never fully claimed him and he did not exhibit with them again.
De Nittis had settled in Paris in his early twenties, and his home with his wife Leontine became a gathering place for writers such as Zola and the Goncourt brothers and painters such as Manet and Degas. He caught the modern city with a light, quick touch: snow falling on empty boulevards, crowds crossing the new squares, races and fashionable people in the parks.
Success came fast. He won a gold medal at the 1878 Paris world's fair and was given the Legion of Honour. De Nittis died suddenly of a stroke in 1884, only 38 years old, with much of his best work made in barely fifteen years.
