Antonio Ciccone met Padre Pio as a child growing up in San Giovanni Rotondo, the mountain village of his birth. He was born in 1939 to a farm family in a small stone cottage behind the Capuchin Friary where Padre Pio was a revered Franciscan monk. He was formally introduced to the stigmatized friar when he was six by his first grade schoolteacher. Through a childhood dominated by a consuming passion for drawing, Antonio attended Padre Pio’s Mass and went to Confession where he received strong spiritual guidance. It was at the age of 13, after Confession, that he showed Padre Pio his drawings and asked him for his help in realizing his dream to go to Florence to study art.

A year later, with the Padre’s assistance and with his blessing, Ciccone left for Florence where he entered the studio of Maestro Pietro Annigoni and commenced a seven year study of drawing and painting. He remained close to Padre Pio over the years, visiting him whenever he could and keeping the Padre informed of his progress.

From 1958-64 Ciccone was commissioned to paint a number of frescoes in the Capuchin Friary and so, living in a cell at the friary, had the opportunity to enrich his friendship with Padre Pio and to observe and study him from an artistic perspective.

Since that time – in over four decades – Antonio Ciccone has accomplished hundreds of extraordinary charcoal drawings and acrylic paintings of Padre Pio, his constant and continuing source of inspiration.

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