ILIR FICO was born in Albania in 1949, and obtained a B.Sc. in Architecture. Painting was an integral part of his education. Professional training in Italy, France, Denmark, Austria and Greece, which included postgraduate education, completed his formation. His style of art was incompatible with communist ideology, and was developed over time away from official galleries and limelight. All of his early works were destroyed, since their discovery would have exposed him to arrest and imprisonment. This in fact did happen to a number of Albanian artists.

After the collapse of the Albania’s totalitarian regime in 1992, following the fall of the Berlin wall, his works were first exhibited in 1993, in Italy, as part of a wandering exhibit of his and other Albanian artists’ works. The exhibit was entitled “Albanian Artists of the Renaissance”. Exhibits in Albania ensued, and in 1998/1999 Art Diary (an International Art Directory) listed Fico among the best known artists in Albania.

His love for the great Albanian, Mother Teresa, developed early in his life, and he started sketches of future canvases of her when the future saint was prohibited from entering the country where she was born. His first exhibit of 45 canvases of Mother Teresa was held in the Albanian National Historic Museum in 1996. When Mother Teresa passed away in 1997, Fico’s works were the only ones that decorated the official Memorial Chamber organized in the Albanian capital Tirana, by the Albanian government.

He has a distinct style called: Romantic Abstract, which implies the use of vivid colors and which, attracts not only the connoisseur but also a casual first time viewer. His works have been exhibited in Albania and Italy and have been sold also in France, the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and the US.

In 1999 Mr. Fico and his family immigrated to Canada in the wake of a tumultuous civil unrest that shook the young democracy in Albania. Upon arrival, Fico became a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and started a series on Houses of God in Canada, with Romantic Abstract canvases depicting Churches, Synagogues and other religious buildings in the Greater Toronto Area. This was a major project, which required a substantial commitment of time and effort.

As a lover of classical music, Fico has developed a very close link with this special source of inspiration, and has worked on many canvases representing in Romantic Abstract rendition of the works of Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Verdi, Berlioz, Puccini and many others.