Pietro Annigoni

Pietro Annigoni (1910–1988) was an Italian portrait and fresco painter, who became world famous after painting Queen Elizabeth II in 1956. Born in Milan in 1910, Annigoni was a painter who was influenced by the Italian Renaissance. From the end of the 1920s on, he lived mainly in Florence where he studied at the College of the Piarist Fathers. In 1927, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he attended the courses given by Felice Carena in painting, Giuseppe Graziosi in sculpture, and Celestino Celestini in etching. Annigoni enrolled in the nude class run by the Florentine Circolo degli Artisti, while attending the open class in the same subject at the Academy. Annigoni exhibited his work for the first time in...