He retains a special and unique place in Maltese Contemporary Art, mainly of a spirited father, loving teacher and as an artist who matured through the hardship of life.
His father, a successful clothing merchant with an outlet in Valletta's St John's Square, realised his son's artistic ambitions and supported him throughout his career.
In 1936 he started attending the Malta Government School of Art studying under Vincent Apap, Edward Caruana Dingli, Carmelo Mangion and Carmel Attard Cassar.
With over 80 documented self-portraits produced, during different stages of his artistic career, Camilleri ranks as Malta's most revered self-portraitist who defined himself and his art through the promulgation of his own image.
Camilleri in his self-portraits sheds all religious inhibitions and disregards any conservative criticism by depicting himself in the guise of the resurrected Christ exposing the stigmata.
Camilleri does not tamper with, interpret or modify his surroundings from their pure state of being; he simply immortalises them and shares them with the viewer as part of his memory, as an extension of the self.
Dr Joseph Paul Cassar contends that Camilleri anticipated New Realism artist, Daniel Spoerri’s famous breakthrough, known as his ‘snare pictures’ (tableaux piège), in which he fixed the remains of the ordinarily mundane, such as the constituents of a meal, crockery and glassware, in vertical tableaus.
[6] The artist suffered from various health problems throughout his life, in 1972 he had a heart attack which forced him to stop teaching for a short period of time.