Luigi Lucioni

Luigi Lucioni (born Giuseppe Luigi Carlo Benevenuto Lucioni November 4, 1900 – July 22, 1988) was an Italian American painter known for his still lifes, landscapes, and portraits.

Luigi Lucioni was born on November 4, 1900 in Malnate, Italy, which lies in a mountainous region approximately 30 miles north of Milan, in the foothills of the Alps near the border between Italy and Switzerland. Lucioni's parents, Angelo and Maria Beati Lucioni, who were married in 1890, were from the nearby region of Castiglione Olona, as were Lucioni's grandparents. Lucioni had three older sisters: Angela (b. 1891), Alice (b. 1893) and Aurora (b. 1897), and the family lived in a two-room apartment with no gas, running water or a bathtub. As Lucioni's grandmother was upset by the "pagan" names given to his sisters, his parents named him Giuseppe Luigi Carlo Benevenuto Lucioni, naming him after three saints, in order to make amends with her. Lucioni, who was greatly influenced by his strict disciplinarian mother, called her "La Bella Beati", or a beautiful blonde woman. His father Angelo was a coppersmith, but was not a good businessman, and often did not follow through by collecting from his customers. As was customary, Lucioni wore skirts until he was six years old, and clearly remembered wearing pants for the first time during a church holiday in 1906. As a child, Lucioni came to adore the natural beauty of the hills and mountainsides when he explored the region between Malnate and the Swiss border, and showed an early interest in art, in particular drawing, possibly influenced by a cousin of his father's, who also harbored a talent for drawing. Lucioni's first classes were in geometrical drawing, and at age six, his talent caught the attention of his teacher, Miss Gadisco, a woman from Varese who had some artistic training herself, and who encouraged him to pursue drawing and etching as a career.

Members of the Lucionis extended family had emigrated to the Transvaal Colony in Africa and to South America, which was a favored destination of northern Italians at the time, and because of the poor economy of 1900s Italy. 40-year-old Angelo emigrated to New York City in 1906, and after establishing himself as a coppersmith and tinsmith, sent for the rest of the family. Maria, having heard about the "savages and Indians" in the United States, took Lucioni to Milan, his first time in a big city, where he was confirmed in the Duomo in order to protect his soul. On July 15, 1911, the family boarded the ship Duke of Genoa for the U.S. Despite traveling steerage, Lucioni recalled the trip as "really nice". After being quarantined for nine days in the sweltering August heat in New York Harbor with 350 other third class passengers due to a cholera report, the ship landed at 34th Street pier on August 9, and the family was transferred to Ellis Island. While being processed there, they had to have several injections, and the embarrassment of having to expose her derrière in front of strangers caused the very modest and sensitive Angela to nearly have a nervous breakdown. The family then moved in with Angelo in the apartment he rented on Christopher Street in Manhattan.

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