"Nicola Simbari The Blue Umbrella Oil on canvas 28 x 32 in "

Nicola Simbari was an Italian painter. Rendered in a distinctive style akin to Neo-Impressionism, Simbari's works employ broad swatches of bright pastel hues to form stylized representations of people and places. His oeuvre features recurring landscape scenes of Mediterranean environments, often with partially nude women bathing or in the process of dress. Born in San Lucido, Calabria on July 13, 1927, the artist developed his practice in the 1940s after study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, and subsequently gained commercial success exhibiting his paintings in London and New York throughout the 1950s. Simbari's work is now included among the collections of the Bank of Tokyo and the Paris-based Christian Dior Collection. He died in Italy on December 11, 2012.