Born in Turin, Italy in 1892, Piero Sansalvadore was educated and later exhibited in his birth town and in Milan, before settling in London in 1930. Following his first solo show at the Claridge Gallery the same year, he had many other successful London exhibitions, including at the Fine Arts Society, Kensington Art Gallery and Parson's Gallery. Sansalvadore's vibrant impasto works, often on a small scale, were influenced by French Impressionism, especially his scenes of London and the Thames, the English countryside and harbours.
Painter Piero Sansalvadore was born Pietro Giacinto Angelo Sansalvadore in Turin, Italy in 1892. During the First World War he served in the army and this experience led to the publication of his collection of poems entitled Vôs da la Guèra (Voices of the War) in 1918. The previous year, in 1917, he had participated in the National Art Exhibition at the Brera Academy, Milan, showing the painting Adolescenza (Adolescence) and the etching Discussione a Ponte Vecchio (Discussion at the Ponte Vecchio). Sansalvadore also exhibited with the Società Promotrice di Belle Arti in Turin, a society founded in 1841 to promote the work of young artists, in 1927, 1928 and 1929.
In 1929 Sansalvadore moved to Venice and travelled to London around 1930 to present a solo show of his paintings at the Claridge Gallery. Fascinated by the English art scene, he eventually settled in London for the next twenty years, setting up his studio in Peel Street, Kensington. Sansalvadore's work, often on a small scale, was influenced by French Impressionism. He produced highly praised views of London, the Thames, the English countryside and harbour scenes, capturing the chromatic subtleties of water and atmosphere. Two years after his first solo show, he held the exhibition Scotland Seen by an Italian in Glasgow (1932). In Piero Sansalvadore, London Seen by an Italian, which took place at the Connell Galleries in 1934, he showed, among other works, the painting A Wet Day in Trafalgar Square (reproduced in the Observer on 29th April 1934, p. 20). The Times described the exhibition as ‘attractive’ and commented that the paintings, ‘executed with the slightest foreign accent […] explore the infinite variety of London, in both architectural pattern and atmospheric effect […]' and 'being worked directly on the panel in solid pigment these little pictures should be as permanent as they are pleasing, and the method allows texture to suggest detail without degradation of colour (The Times 1934, p. 12). In 1938 Sansalvadore exhibited with the Fine Arts Society in New Bond Street. The painting Big Ben and four other small, impressionistic views of St Paul's, Big Ben and Whitehall, characterised by an impasto surface and bright pigment, celebrating the Silver Jubilee of King George V, were purchased by Queen Mary and are now part of the Royal Collection. Another exhibit was the painting was Bolt Head and Bolt Tail from Salcombe, Devon, reproduced in The Sphere on 10th December 1938, p. 448. In the same issue of the magazine, Sansalvadore described the details of his open-air painting technique. Instead of brushes, he employed a palette knife, believing that it was possible to reach a very high pitch of brilliancy through using oil colours on unprepared wooden panels without the addition, during the process of painting, of any oil.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Sansalvadore joined the BBC, where he was involved in anti-Mussolini propaganda. In 1951 he had the painting Old Bosham: the Yacht Club, from the Green shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and exhibited over 80 works, characterised by 'a jewel-like quality' of the palette, at the Parsons Gallery (The Studio International 1951, p. 91). Sansalvadore returned to Italy around 1950. Piero Sansalvadore died in Turin, Italy in 1955. His work is represented in UK public collections including the Guildhall Art Gallery,; Museum of London (a series of pictures of war-damaged London); Royal Collection and Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow. A lithograph depicting the English author Malcolm Charles Salaman is held in the British Museum collection and a self-portrait commissioned for the cover of Art News & Review can be found in the Tate archive collection.