Mimmo Paladino was born in 1948 in Italy. As a boy he studied at the Liceo Artistico di Benvenuto. In the late 1970s he was, along with Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enxo Cucchi and Nicola de Maria, original members of the "transavanguardia", a movement that was largely an Expressionist revival. He was soon having one-man shows in galleries and museums in Europe and New York City. Despite all the early attention, Paladino stayed in Italy, bought a bigger car and taught at the same art school that he had attended as a child.

In 1984, amid the olive groves and tobacco fields of his native Paduli, Paladino built a sprawling house and painted it a pale yellow. With his wife, Imma and their daughter Ginest...