Aldo Riso was born in 1927 in Santa Maria di Leuca, near Lecce. He took a degree in law, but from a young age he began to refine his knowledge of painting techniques, especially watercolours, in order to depict the famous landscapes of Puglia and of southern Italy in general.

He held his first exhibition in 1956, and his artistry and imagination met with such market success that he started to exhibit in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Serbia, Spain, Canada, United States, Mexico, Argentina and South Africa as well as Italy. In the early 1970s, he was commissioned to produce a large mural on Ustica, and his love for the island remained a constant throughout his life. His work was characterized by a clear, intense, and radiant painting style, with landscapes flooded with light and with the transparency typical of watercolours. His paintings show rarefied houses, boats and fishermen, seemingly suspended under merciless skies with a crystal-clear sea beyond.

His artwork has attracted the interest of important art critics and famous personalities from the world of entertainment and culture. Indeed, his paintings are present in numerous public and private collections. Riso died in Rome in 2008.