Guglielmo Micheli
1866–1926 · Italian landscape and seascape painter from Livorno
Guglielmo Micheli (Livorno, 1866-1926) was an Italian painter who worked mainly on landscapes and seascapes, in oils and watercolours. Thanks to a stipend named after the artist Michelangelo Bastoni, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence as a pupil of Natale Betti, in a school then directed by Giovanni Fattori. There he befriended Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo and Plinio Nomellini, among other fellow students, and kept in touch with them by letter. At first he painted in a manner that recalled the Macchiaioli, and gradually developed a style of his own. He also made engravings and designed book illustrations. In 1888 he married Guglielmina Paganucci, granddaughter of the Livorno sculptor Giovanni Paganucci, and he died in Livorno in 1926. His most prominent pupil was Amedeo Modigliani; his other students included Gino Romiti and Renato Natali. Among his cited works are White Oxen and Port of Livorno.