Alessandro ZEZZOS (1848-1914) ✿

Alessandro Zezzos (1848-1914) was an Italian painter born in Venice to a Venetian mother and a Greek father. After completing his classical studies, he enrolled at the Venice Academy where he befriended his fellow students Nono, Milesi and Favretto. Among his favorite subjects we find costume scenes, portraits and various figures in Venetian city environments.

Following the fashion inaugurated by the latter, he painted Venetian scenes with an eighteenth-century setting. He made his debut in 1868 in the halls of the Venetian Society Promoter of Fine Arts with the paintings Figure of a woman, Exercise of inclination and a Portrait. Three years later Pompeo Molmenti in the magazine "L’Arte in Italia" defines him as a new talent together with Ciardi and Zandomeneghi.

Camillo Boito, however, is not of the same opinion and in "New Anthology" he distinguishes between the painting of Zandomeneghi of which he is enthusiastic and that of Alessandro Zezzos and a Eugenio Blaas. In 1873 he exhibited in Venice the opera Ne ’bridegroom,’ son, a family scene.

This would be followed by another presence at the exhibitions in Paris (Les saltimbanques, Les pigeons de Saint Marc, 1877), Milan (Merchant of fans: genre, A flight in 1700, 1891), Rome (The lovers, 1893) and, from '97 to the Venice Biennale.

In 1892 he illustrated Henry James's essay "The Grand Canal" and in 1895 he took part in the first edition of the Venice Biennale where he presented Aratura and Piazza San Marco. Alessandro Zezzos died in Vittorio Veneto in 1914.