While still an infant, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, Agostino and Anna Trovaioli.
They arrived at Ellis Island, New York, aboard the steamship Canada on June 12, 1921, having sailed from Naples.
Many of his extended family members, dating back some four generations, worked as artists and ceramicists.
He specialized in early American art,[8] and became an authority on the life and work of Southern painter William Aiken Walker.
[9] Trovaioli was instrumental in broadening art education opportunities in both public and private schools across the Gulf Coast.