If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then art certainly is subjective, too. However, the greats seem to have staying power. Such is the case for Dario Campanile, who was born in Rome, Italy, in 1948 and has been painting for 65 years. Now a part-time Old Naples resident with his wife, Patricia, Campanile spent his early childhood years painting with watercolors. In adolescence, he grew ill with nephritis, a serious kidney condition that confined him to bed rest at home for four months. To lift his spirits, his father bought him a set of oil paints. From his bed, Campanile painted his first still life portrait in just a few days. The quality of his work impressed his parents, who recognized then he was a natural. Campanile felt it, too.
“I shocked my parents, and I recall telling them that I had done this before,” says Campanile. “It felt so familiar. It was so easy for me, for some reason, to paint with oil. And I have never stopped.”
Piece by piece, Campanile’s work is astonishing. But what’s perhaps most remarkable is the broad artistic styles he’s traversed, working in Realism, Surrealism, Impressionism, and Abstractionism—and even pivoting from painting to successful experimentation with cast paper and bronze sculpting, among other mediums.
“Dario’s works have not only stayed relevant, they have grown in power and energy, proving ultimately to have long-lasting and increasing value,” says Marlissa Gardner, founder/owner of Emillions Art in Naples, where Campanile’s work is exhibited and sold. “This is very rare for an artist to stay relevant, grow in power, and speak to all ages and cultures.”
Master Class
Campanile is self-taught. He spent hours observing the works of the masters, which were readily available and accessible in Italy’s Eternal City. “I tried to go to art school, but I hated it,” says Campanile. “I studied by visiting the churches and museums in Rome. I used to just stare for hours. That was my school.”
Though not formally trained, Campanile did receive some guidance along the way, including from two revered artists: famed Surrealist Salvador Dalí and Giorgio de Chirico, a pioneer in the Metaphysical painting movement, considered a precursor to Surrealism.
Campanile met Dalí serendipitously when he was in his 20s while vacationing in Cadaques, Spain. He randomly encountered Dalí’s accountant first, who insisted on showing Campanile’s portfolio of work to the eccentric master. Dalí, who would later label Campanile the “Roman master,” invited him to a reception and to his home for a private discussion on art. Campanile made the most of this opportunity, querying Dalí about a particular creative concern of his.
“In my exploration of Realism, I used photography as a guide,” explains Campanile, who would frequently capture subjects in a photograph and use this as a point of reference.
“A lot of my fellow artists in this day thought that doing this was cheating—that an artist should paint from their mind only. I had a monkey on my shoulder about it. But when I met Dalí and I mentioned this to him, he just laughed. He said, ‘My God, I use photography!’ From this, he gave me permission and explained that the artistic expression still goes through me. This allowed me to take a huge step technically.”
Giorgio de Chirico also imparted sound advice. With the help of a friend who was delivering a bed to de Chirico’s home, Campanile landed in front of the groundbreaking painter in 1967. Campanile wore a raincoat under which he hid two of his still lifes.
“I opened my raincoat, and he laughed,” recalls Campanile. “He asked me to place the paintings out by the wall. And he was surprised to see how advanced I was as a beginner. He asked me several technical questions, including how I painted my dark backgrounds.”
“He taught me to do a base behind and to not just paint black on canvas, explaining that this would make the black appear deeper and more intense. I didn’t know that. Meeting de Chirico was amazing because, not unlike my experience with Dalí, it was confirmation of my abilities. The icing on the cake was that he gave me a tour of his house.”
Famous Subjects
Campanile’s fortuitous encounters continued after he moved to London, when he met famous Hollywood casting director Lynn Stalmaster, who was visiting the city. Stalmaster purchased one of Campanile’s works and encouraged him to visit Los Angeles. Eventually, he moved there and was invited for a solo exhibit by the Edgardo Acosta Gallery in Beverly Hills.
“The show wasn’t super successful because the clientele didn’t totally understand or appreciate Surrealism,” says Campanile. There were several notable persons at the exhibit, however, including movie icon Jimmy Stewart. “He looked at my paintings and was lost; he didn’t know what to think about them. But he was my hero as a boy, and I couldn’t believe he was looking at my work.”
While Stewart might have been perplexed by Campanile’s work, plenty of celebrities recognized the artist’s genius, including actor Carl Weathers, who is most famous for his role as Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky movies.
“Dario is an artist,” notes Weathers, who considers the painter a good friend. “We met in 1977, and shortly thereafter, I began collecting his works and continue to do so to this day. Dario’s abilities as an artist continue to amaze me. From his hyperrealism to portraiture to abstract paintings, his work is unique and specifically Campanile.”
Campanile remained in Los Angeles for a total of 10 years, meeting a sundry cast, including a producer from Capitol Records who suggested he generate art for album covers. Among others, Campanile created cover art for Lee Ritenour, Little River Band, Cheech and Chong, and Herbie Hancock. In addition to this, Campanile served as a background artist for the well-known animation studio Hanna-Barbera, working to create cartoons such as Yogi Bear and The Flintstones. In 1986, he was commissioned by Paramount Pictures to design and paint for the company’s seventy-fifth anniversary logo, which included the film giant’s notable mountain emblem.
“Paramount could not use my painting in video,” explains Campanile. “But they constructed a three-dimensional model of it and filmed that.”
Campanile’s contact with celebrated individuals did not stop when he moved away from Los Angeles. In 2005, while dividing his time between Northern California and Maui, Hawaii, he was among 85 artists to partake in a multimedia art exhibition titled The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama. As a participant, Campanile traveled to India and was granted a private visit with the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. The event provided the inspiration for his symbolic painting Missing Peace Found, a portrait of the Dalai Lama holding a newspaper with a liberated dove flying upward, snapping its shackles and busting through the paper.
“Meeting the Dalai Lama was an amazing experience,” says Campanile. “The exhibition toured for five years at prominent museums around the world, and at the end, all profits were donated to the Dalai Lama and his causes.”
In the Abstract
Currently, Campanile and his wife spend about half their time in Naples and the other half in Maui. In addition to Emillions Art in Naples, he has gallery representation at Lahaina Galleries in Maui and Newport Beach, California, as well as Sorokin Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. His work has shifted almost exclusively to Abstract Expressionism, a mode he has found most liberating.
“[Abstract painting] is the most direct and pure expression from my soul,” says Campanile. “Realism is very planned, very technical, and often requires an academic approach. The challenge for abstract work is to surrender and be like an open vessel. Then, the energy can flow through me and goes onto the canvas. This helps me to explore new visions coming from my soul, my unconsciousness.”
Gardner of Emillions Art values the complexity of Campanile’s abstract work, explaining that it’s a difficult genre to capture with the intensity, content, and context that he encapsulates.
“I truly believe Dario’s well-refined skill in Realism empowers him to bring more to an abstract work than most,” Gardner says. “I am delighted every day to see all ages identifying with something they love in his artwork.”
For his part, Campanile enjoys hearing from those who view and experience his abstract works. He explains the personal satisfaction derived from painting in this mode: “I paint Abstract Expressionism because the reward is amazing,” says Campanile. “When I’m in the process of painting, I go to another level of consciousness. It’s a mystical, amazing thing. A creative force guides me.”
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