One of the leading players in the Art Nouveau style, or Liberty style as it is known in Italy, this Tuscan painter (who was also a graphic artist and a ceramicist) occupies a unique place in the panorama of Italian art.
Born in Florence, Galileo Chini pursued his artistic studies in a sporadic, desultory manner, attending the Scuola Libera di Nudo at the city's Accademia di Belle Arti for a while, but without ever gaining any kind of diploma from it, he was to break off his studies in order to work as an artisan in the workshop of his uncle, a restorer and decorator.
On the uncle's death he took over the management of the workshop and received various commissions from the Fine Arts Superintendency to restore a range of works of art.
He soon turned his attention to ceramics, in which field he was to create some of his best work.
In 1896 he set up a ceramic workshop entitled Arte della ceramica, through which he contributed to the dissemination of the Sezession style in Italy, creating Art Nouveau ceramics that were to earn him an international appreciation.
His success was crowned at the exhibitions in London and Turin in 1896, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and at the exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1900, and again at the Turin exhibition in 1902.
Galileo Chini's experience as a ceramicist went through several different phases, culminating in a "gold encrusted" phase, not dissimilar to Klimt's painting, to which he resorted to clad a building in the spa of Salsomaggiore Terme.
He showed his work at the Venice Biennale from 1901 to 1909, and in 1909 he frescoed the dome of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni with allegorical and floral scenes.
In 1909 he took the chair of painting at the Accademia Libera in Rome, while in 1911 he was awarded the same chair at the Accademia in Florence, and in the meantime he devoted his energies to stage design (for "Turandot" at Milan's Scala Theatre in 1926 and for "Cenerentola" in 1936).
He also produced numerous posters (for the Ethnographic Exhibition in Rome in 1911, for the Cena delle Beffe in 1909 and 1924 and so on). His post as official layout designer for the Venice Biennale also presented him with the opportunity to travel to Siam.
It was precisely at the Biennale in Venice that King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam saw his work and, as Chini tells us in his Memoirs, was struck by the decoration of the eight segments of the dome in the Biennale hall in 1909, prompting the monarch to commission Chini to decorate the Throne Rome in his palace in Bangkok with frescoes and paintings.
Chini travelled to Siam in June 1911, ending up spending almost three years in the country and developing an exuberant feeling for colour whilst in the Orient.
The most important events held in his honour after his death included two major retrospectives of his work, one held in Milan in 1965 and the other in Arezzo in 1967.