Born in 1981 in Colleferro, an industrial town south of Rome, Massimiliano Pironti is a largely self-taught Italian artist who gained inspiration from Renaissance masters. His works are almost exclusively portraits painted oil on aluminium and characterized by strong attention to detail.
“The themes of my paintings have always been people, lives, personalities, who with their stories also become food for thought on issues related to life. The main objective of my painting has always been trying to give life and soul to portraits. For this reason, even the crazy search for perfection and details becomes fundamental for me. I am really obsessed by the details, the more I represent them, the more I continue to want to represent them. I find the aluminium panel itself very fascinating and the light it gives off. The smooth surface then adapts better to my painting technique, made up of very thin layers of colour, of overlapping glazes. The construction of the image takes place slowly and progressively”.
In 2023, his painting “Quo vadis?” was acquired by the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart and has become part of its permanent collection.
In 2021 Massimiliano was commissioned by HM King Charles III to paint the portrait of Arek Hersh, as part of the project-exhibition “Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust”. The portrait, part of the Royal Collection, was on display at the Queen’s Gallery-Buckingham Palace from January to February 2022 and at The Palace of Holyroodhouse, in Edinburgh, from March to June 2022. Pironti also took part in the documentary “Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust” for BBC two and BBC World News.
Pironti was selected in 2018 for the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery for which then, in 2019, he won the third Prize with his portrait “Quo vadis?”. In the same year Pironti took part in the documentary Portrait of an artist for BBC World News.
In 2020 he was invited, with the portrait of Mafalda Von Hessen, to The Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition at The Mall Galleries. Further works as important public commissions are the portrait of Fr. Carlos Azpiroz Costa, Former Master of the Dominican Order, for the Convent of the Basilica of S. Sabina in Rome and the official portrait of the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin for the Hölderlin museum in Lauffen, Germany.
In addition to his work as an artist, Pironti has also enjoyed an international career as a theatrical performer (singer-dancer-actor) in Italy and Germany, for which in 2011 he was awarded the prize as best Italian performer.