Biography & Italian Façade Series; Oil Paintings - Sold and New Works - Niccolo Justinian
Italian Architectural Oil Paintings
"Prelude to a Nocturne in Blue" - Oil.
H12" X W16"
Provenance: New.
New from his Italian Façade Series is a new traditional oil work by the artist Niccolo Justinian. Based on the artist's influences from his prior residence in Italy, this work is the latest in this Series. It features the artist's signature draped windows & doorways, and is one of the artist's notable works. "This work was especially challenging. On one hand, I wanted to convey the nuances of a limited color range, while also remain authentic in rendering varying lighting effects across its surface during several times of day," says the artist.
"Prelude to a Nocturne in Blue" exemplifies an important work in this Series. Its evocative composition mesmerizes the viewer and the deep, timeless cascades of reds, amber, burgundy, & purples with warm colors for the 'golden hour' of light and shadow before dusk, are made by a palette knife with translucent glazes, and by varying the shadow angles about the window. In this work, the striking blue curtain billows in the gentle breeze, beckoning the viewer inside. The rich textures of this Renaissance-era edifice create options for various analogous red colors that interact with one another, and that intimately dance across its weathered façade.
"Italian Sonnets for the Nightingale" - Oil.
H12" X W16"
Provenance: New.
Also new from The Italian Façade-Series is a new traditional work which exemplifies works of this aesthete-genre in The Italian Façade Series by Niccolo Justinian, and is based on the artist's influences from his prior residence in Italy. It features the artist's unique signature draped window-openings, singing birds, and for some, early musical instruments. Nestled in a canopy-landscape with a Celadon jade sky, the soft green subject and focal area counterpoint lusciously with the muted pinks in the foreground, for a unique canted composition, as the work is balanced chromatically and structurally in design. The artist depicts a manuscript in a window with two birds perched outside in this scene for a memorable moment as sung melodiously in, Italian Sonnets for the Nightingale.
"Steps Closer to Your Presence" - Oil.
H12" X W16"
Provenance: New.
And finally, the third piece in the current set of this size for The Italian Façade Series by Niccolo Justinian, is a new mesmerizing nocturne work.
Nick Justinian in front of his oil painting, Better is One Day in Your Courts from the "Italian Façade-Series" standing with Gary Walden, Managing Director of The Alexandra Stevens Gallery, Santa Fe, 2005. Oil on Canvas. H48" X W36" (122 X 91) cm.
Italian Architectural Oil Paintings, Sold Works:
• "Prelude to an Evening Watch" Oil on Canvas.
H50" X W40" - 1997. Sold.
Provenance: E.S. Lawrence Gallery, Aspen, Colorado.
Private Collection.
H30" X W40" - 1996. Sold.
Provenance 1: Joe Wade Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Provenance 2: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Private Collection.
Provenance 1: Post Gallery, Houston, Texas.
Provenance 2: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Private Collection.
• "Windows' Arias on the Sea" Acrylic.
H27-5/8” X W39-1/8” - 1997. Sold.
Provenance: E.S. Lawrence Gallery, Aspen,
Colorado.
Private Collection.
• "Mementos for a Journey" Oil.
H14" X W14" - 2000. Sold.
Provenance: Post Gallery, Houston, Texas.
Private Collection.
• "Consummate Vigil" Acrylic.
H25" X W27" - 1995. Sold.
Provenance: Billy Graham Center Museum-Exhibition, Wheaton College, IL.
Private Collection, Bloomingdale, IL.
• "Duomo Apse-Window, Pisa Cathedral, Italy" Oil on Canvas.
H60" X W50" - 1999. Sold.
Provenance: Craighead/Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
Private Collection.
• "Within The Golden Stillness" Oil on Canvas.
H30" X W40" - 2004. Sold.
Provenance 1: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Provenance 2: Artist's Studio Gallery.
Collection: Kaiser Permanente, Colorado.
• "Portal Path, San Cristoforo" Acrylic.
H50" X W40" - 2004. Sold.
Provenance 1: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Provenance 2: Artist's Studio Gallery.
Collection: Kaiser Permanente, Colorado.
• "Season's Waiting #2" Oil on Canvas.
H36" X W24" - 2000. Sold.
Provenance: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Private Collection.
• "Season's Waiting" Oil on Canvas.
H36" X W24" Sold.
Provenance: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Private Collection.
• "A Windswept Kiss" Oil.
H14" X W14" - 2000. Sold.
Provenance: Edmund Craig Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas.
Private Collection.
"Bedchamber Serenade"
H40" X W30" Acrylic.
PAST FINE ART GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Santa Fe, NM. Victory Contemporary, f/n/a McLarry Modern (2012 –2016)
Santa Fe, NM. Alexandra Stevens Gallery (2003-2007)
Denver, CO. 2X Contemporary (2004-2005) – solo, artist’s gallery
Denver, CO. Patron’s Art Gallery at Cherry Creek (2000-2003)
Grand Jct., CO. Horse-Thief Canyon Gallery (2001-2002)
Vail & Beaver Creek, CO. Bader/Melnick-McClure Galleries (2000-2005)
Houston, TX. Post Gallery (1999-2003)
Aspen CO. and/or Laguna Beach, CA., Miranda Galleries (1999-2005)
Santa Fe, NM. Joe Wade Fine Art (1998-2003)
Aspen, CO. E.S. Lawrence Gallery (1997-2000)
Dallas, TX. Texas Art Gallery (1996)
Dallas, TX. Craighead Green Gallery (1997 – )
Fort Worth, TX. The Edmund Craig Gallery (1994-2016)
Austin, TX. Spicewood Gallery (1985-1993)
ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY
Born in Houston, Texas to part Native/Hispanic parents, the artist changed his name in
1985 to what it is today. He did not experience any of the language or cultural influences of
these ethnicities growing up, so at an early age, he pursued the arts and piano to help shape
his identity. By high school, his stepfather and mother were able bring the artist to live in Japan, and later he lived in Italy in his junior year, which permitted him to experience the museums and art collections of the Vatican, Rome, Florence, and Venice. When he returned to the U.S. at age 18, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Chemistry. By 1985 local galleries began representing his work at the age of 20. In 1987 he took an interest in using CAD technology to develop his furniture designs. By 1995 he served as Design Director for the internationally acclaimed Manheim-Weitz/Galleries under David Sutherland of David Sutherland Showrooms, Inc. The firm had specialized in very fine mahogany antique furniture-reproductions and custom new furniture for dozens of interior design firms across the country, including Holly Hunt (k/n/a Miller/Knoll).
Several art dealers across the country helped shape the artist with good advice, including mentors like George Beylerian of the Steelcase Design Partnership, Poteet Victory of Santa Fe, Jackie Depew of Austin (ASID Chapter President-Texas, who previously worked for Ross Perot), and concert pianist Lucien Lemieux of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, among many others.
By 1998 he owned and operated his own design/build workshop producing custom furniture to the Design Trade in Dallas.
His first artistic experiences with traditional landscape painting began early in rural Pennsylvania, in the heart of historic Bucks County, PA. While taking art classes at that county's community college at age 15, picturesque scenes of Neshaminy Creek near his home in Yardley, PA. inspired him to paint outside in all seasons in watercolors and oils.
From these en-plein air studies with an admiration of changing seasons, the artist yielded himself to studying light. He says, "I would witness soothing water-brooks on the creek, and
mesmerizingly rhythmic waves, shimmering and dancing with fleeting passages of scintillating light across the surface.” As a result today, these tranquil landscape works with pierced lighting-details are collectively known as, "The Waterway
Collection" of scintillating landscapes.
Tour The Waterway Scintillating Landscapes:
“For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.”
– Psalm 36:9, NKJV.
Growing up in the Texas south in a sprawling urban environment like Houston until the age of 12 and moving to the Northeast had a profound effect on him as a teen artist, allowing him to get a change of scenery just when he began to officially learn how to paint in oils at the age of 12. He read a lot too about Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Gustave Courbet, John S. Sargent, and Claude Monet at this time, and practiced painting en-plein air, working in all seasons at 14. It is from these early experiences that the artist first developed his ability to observe, record, and mix changing colors & spontaneous reactions to light, just as Monet did for his subjects while working outside in oils, painting on location several works in a day during the changing sunlight and weather. As a result, the artist since childhood is mostly self-taught.
EARLY INFLUENCES FROM LIVING IN JAPAN
At 16 the artist journeyed to Tokyo with his mother and stepfather who worked for Mobil Oil as an engineer in Yokohama, Japan. While in Japan the artist visited with great curiosity to see some of Japan's national collections of sumi-ink/rice-paper art works, silk-hangings, exemplary collections of pottery, and imperial Japanese, historical artifacts. He soon discovered the Holbein® brand of professional art supplies and painting materials by way of a birthday gift from a friend. This permitted him to gain early proficiency in professionally pigmented mediums, namely in watercolors.
Today, his interests in historic 16thC. Japanese Oribe-ware pottery and wabi-sabi aesthetics, that is, the aesthetics of “imperfection”, inspire his own slab-formed pottery pieces, using wood firing anagama-style traditional kiln-firing methods. Organic clay pieces are favorite subjects of the artist (cf. Publication #84, Hand Built Ceramics & Pottery; see below), featuring hand-built, slab-form sculptural ceramics, and seasonal, new wood-fired pieces.
© Nick Justinian, 2020
Hand-built Porcelain Sculpture
H2-7/8" X W3-1/8"
(H7.3 X Ø8) cm
Coleman, Cone Δ10
LIFETIME INFLUENCES FROM LIVING IN ITALY
By the 11th grade, the artist's family moved to Indonesia to Jakarta where his step-father continued his work with Mobil Oil at various refineries. During this time, the artist lived in Rome at a boarding school (Scuola Notre Dame Internazionale), an historic private school once located at 796 Via Aurelia in the capital city, and designed in 1960 by Studio Passarelli, and is now the location of a major Italian TV broadcasting firm. The artist while in Italy developed a set of large watercolors made on his local excursions when not in class, painting villas and landscapes.
"As an interdisciplinary artist and painter, I rely on inspiration that I find from numerous sources. I value the undisputed paragons of beauty found in nature and from the Antiquities. My high school residence in Italy has had a profound, lifelong influence upon me as an artist and continues to grow, especially as I learn through more study and AI art research," says the artist.
©2026 NICCOLO JUSTINIAN - All Rights Reserved.
©2026 NICCOLO JUSTINIAN - All Rights Reserved.
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