Dr Joseph Vancell

Apap was a leading Maltese artist active during and around the mid-20th century. Apap was born in 1918 and studied painting in Rome at the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti, where his master was the Neapolitan artist Carlo Siviero. At the outbreak of World War II, he surrendered his British passport in return for a residence and work permit in Italy. Arrested after the capitulation of Italy in 1945, he was brought to Malta and tried for high treason, together with around twenty-five other Maltese, but was acquitted. His release was followed by a period of intense activity during which he established himself as Malta's leading portrait artist. In 1955 he transferred himself permanently to Rome, where in June 1964 he organized a one-man exhibition at the Galleria L'Agostiniana in Piazza del Popolo, which won him very favourable comments. In 1961 he was invited to Windsor Castle to paint a portrait of Princess Anne (exh. 1962; London, Grabowski Gal.). In 1967 he had another successful show, at the Galleria Galeazzo in Alba. His work had by this time become profoundly religious in content, and the bright colours of his earlier paintings gave way to gloomy mauves and grey tones.