Joseph Ross Piccillo, Jr (1937-2022) was an American graphic artist. Born in Buffalo, New York, to Italian immigrants, he lived and worked in that city for all of his life. Piccillo studied at the State University College at Buffalo, where he received his bachelors and masters degrees in art education. He later became a Professor of Art Education at that college. His teaching career spanned over 50 years, during which time he mentored many students. Among them were Cindy Sherman, Charles Clough and Robert Longo, who all went on to become leading figures in the contemporary art world.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, and for the first two decades of the 21st , Piccillo brought virtuosic draftsmanship to American conceptual art. In the years when abstraction dominated the artistic landscape, Piccillo’s hyperrealist work was populated by figures dramatically rendered against a stark black or white background. Rarely in repose, the figures were tense with potential energy or captured at the instant of release. Working at a large scale and with immense skill, his work anticipated the rediscovery and revival of figurative artworks that animates contemporary artists today.

Piccillo was the subject of several solo and group exhibitions at galleries across the United States and internationally. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, among others. His work was also featured in TV and film productions, including High Fidelity and Hannibal.