Piero Dalle Ceste was an Italian painter and is considered by critics to be one of the leading representatives of sacred art of the 20th century. He was born in 1912 in Refrontolo, in the province of Treviso. The premature death of his father in 1918 forced him, at only six years old, into an odyssey through orphanages, first in Veneto and then in Turin. In Turin, still very young, he demonstrated an exceptionally early spontaneous talent in drawing and painting.
In 1933, at just 21 years old, his old parish priest commissioned him to create a painting to replace the Madonna del Rosario di Palma il Giovane, damaged by bombings. From that day on, curias, congregations, and convents in many Italian cities, as well as in Europe and the Americas, entrusted him with large celebratory cycles, apses, domes, altarpieces, stained glass windows, and mosaics.
Among the most important achievements, we remember the frescoes of the Chiesa S.S. Annunziata in Turin, the frescoes of the Santuario di Maria Ausiliatrice in Turin, the cycle of frescoes in the presbytery and the apse basin of the Chiesa Parrocchiale Assunzione Maria Vergine di Caramagna Piemonte in the province of Cuneo, the fresco of the Chiesa S.M. della Valle in Cunico in the province of Asti, the interior of the Santuario di Santa Rita in Turin, the altarpieces of the Santuario di San Giuseppe Marello in Asti and of Santa Chiara in Bra in the province of Cuneo, the Colera paintings of 1855 and the Madonna del Rosario in the Chiesa Parrocchiale di Refrontolo, the frescoes in the apses of the Parrocchia Maria Regina della Pace in Turin. Following the increase in his fame, he was entrusted with the chair of painting at the Accademia Albertina in Turin.
To sacred subjects, Piero Dalle Ceste alternates an easel painting inspired by post-impressionistic realism. His favorite subjects are female portraits, children, landscapes, still lifes characterized by golden luminosity and tonal softness typical of Venetian artistic production. Piero Dalle Ceste died in Turin in 1974.
Piero Dalle Ceste
Piero Dalle Ceste Painter
