Giuseppe Calì

Giuseppe Calì (Valletta, 1846 – 1930) was a Maltese painter of Italian descent and a leading figure in religious and portrait painting in Malta during the nineteenth century. Born to Neapolitan parents who had settled in British Malta, he trained in Naples around 1865 under the neoclassicist Giuseppe Mancinelli, though he was soon drawn to the work of Domenico Morelli and to Verismo.

Back in Valletta in 1867, he painted The Death of Dragut, his first major work, which the government bought and which is still regarded as a masterpiece. After 1870 he began accepting church commissions, such as the St. Jerome at the Sacro Cuore church in Sliema, and he also produced many portraits and decorations for private houses. He worked quickly and his output was very large, although many pieces were lost during the Second World War. He taught at the Lyceum and founded his own school, which favoured Verismo over academic Neo-Classicism. Malta honoured him with a set of postage stamps in 1996 and a coin in 2004.