MASSIMO CARUSO Born in 1956 in Rome, second son of a family from Anagni, his father a lawyer and his mother a teacher and educator. His childhood is spent in the town of the Popes where he has a distinguished school career marked by his dedication to drawing. And it is to drawing and painting that he will dedicate all his talents and his greatest energy in the years to come.

The young Massimo, following his father’s career, gains the highest degree in law, and then also distinguishes himself by passing the bar exams for his profession at the very top level. Instead of following a career in law he would have prefered to follow his artistic vocation, and it is only after pressure from his family that he accepts a position in a bank where he is very soon successful and given positions of responsibility in branches in various cities.

In Sardinia he frequents the studio of Antonio Corriga, an important painter of the Sardinian ‘Novecento’, and he is influenced by his style and the love of nature which characterises his work. He gains recognition in a number of group exhibitions including those in Pesaro, Chiaravalle and Rome.

At the same time, during trips to various European capital cities and other places, he visits numerous museums and private collections studying the works and the techniques of the major painters from Giotto to Antonello da Messina, from Mantegna to Michelangelo and other painters of the Renaissance. He also dedicates much attention to the schools and movements of the ‘Novecento’: Realism, Impressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, Abstract art. He studies, learns, and forms his work. Is it not true that technique must serve inspiration?

His friendship with Giovanni Colacicchi, the eminent painter from Anagni, dates from the early 1970s, and he frequents his studio assiduously. According to Colacicchi, a member of the ‘New Humanist’ movement, painting and sculpture are “essentially figurative arts” which only in that form can “most naturally express human ideas, aspirations and spiritual thoughts” thereby carrying out “an irreplaceable social function”. This lesson makes a great impression, even though Massimo Caruso has no hesitation also in expressing himself with Expressionist and Abstract techniques.

Modest and reserved about his art, he only rarely participates in exhibitions. His last one-man show was organised by the municipality of Anagni in 2006.