Pirro Cuniberti

Who is Pirro Cuniberti?

Pier Achille Cuniberti is an Italian artist. He was born on September 10, 1923 near Bologna, Italy. His father, Emilio the youngest of five children, emigrated to the United States in 1911 and returned to Italy in 1915 to fight as a volunteer in the First World War. His Mother Zaira Monari worked at embroidery, and plays the piano.

After high school, in February 1943 Pirro Cuniberti received his draft notice and is sent to the 2nd Grenadier Regiment of Sardinia; fate will also intervene in the tragic days defending Rome. On the evening of September 10, the military stronghold where Cuniberti is a telephone operator was attacked and his soldiers were killed, captured or scattered. He reached Bologna five days later. In June of the same year he was accepted at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna. In February 1944 he was called for service again and assigned to Germany to train in the Black Forest, where he happens upon a print reproduction of "a small room with a bed, a small table and two straw chairs". he later commented:"I was struck by the simplicity of that 'sketched painting'. I often went back to look at that print which had these words written on it: Vincent van Gogh, Chambre d'Arles, 1989." At the end of the war, research into the "unknown" Van Gogh lead him to the extraordinary world of modern art.