Candida Colosimo

Candida Natiello Colosimo (Vietri di Potenza, 17 November 1878 – Florence, 25 April 1972) was an Italian-American painter, student of Howard Helmick, Red Cross nurse and philanthropist.

[12] Due to her dual citizenship Candida became part of the American colony that lived here and met her second master, Julius Rolshoven, who helped to refine her technique and made her an oil portrait.

[13]So, she participated in many exposures of that time: indeed, in 1913 her presence was attested in the catalogue of works admitted to the "2ª Esposizione Internazionale Femminile di Belle Arti", promoted by the magazine "La Donna", and held at Palazzo Stabile del Valentino (Turin, Italy, 22 May-30 June).

[14] Later, the "Società di Belle Arti in Firenze" declared that she was worthy of the Great Silver Medal for the "Esposizione del Soldato" of May 1917 at Palazzo Davanzati,[15] event in which she had been able to attend because serving in the Italian Red Cross; even Amy Allemand Bernardy, writer on Italian migrations, art expert and journalist of the fortnightly Turin magazine "La Donna", already mentioned, reported about those days in an article wholly Italian-American artist.

The last decades of her life were passed to live and devote herself to the ancient art of embroidery in her Florentine little villa of Via del Ronco 10; however, there was interesting correspondence (1956–59) with her inseparable friend Nancy Cox-McCormack Cushman, popular American sculptor and writer.

In addition, through the activity of the Florentine institution named "Comitato Pro-Case" (founded by herself after WWI), Miss Colosimo began a fundraise, both Italian and international (especially through the American Permanent Blind Relief War Fund of George Alexander Kessler), to help the soldiers most unfortunate and needy through the purchase of a dwelling in their native country.