Attilio was a son of the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Piccirilli who ran a marble shop in Massa, near Carrara, Italy, and who trained his offspring as professional sculptors in their native Tuscany. Additionally, Attilio studied at the Accademia San Luca in Rome and, in 1887, went with his brother Furio to London where they worked on sculptures for St. Paul's Cathedral. The following year, after some setbacks in the father's marble-carving business in Italy, the rest of the family--Giuseppe, his wife, and their sons Getuio, Orazio, Masanielle, and Ferrucio--followed the two other brothers to England. Shortly thereafter, however, the entire family moved to the United States where, in New York, they had re-established the family firm by 1890. On Giuseppe's death, Attilio assumed leadership of the organization which was located on East 142nd Street in the Bronx for many years.
As a company, the Piccirilli's were responsible for the carving of Daniel Chester French's monumental statue for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington as well as for pedimental sculpture for the National Archives and the Supreme Court buildings in Washington. The studios of the Piccirilli family became well-known to most major American sculptors who employed the brothers to enlarge their plaster models. These included Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Olin Warner, Paul Bartlett, Karl Bitter, and Frederick MacMonnies. These and other sculptors, such as Charles Calverley and D. C. French, also used the family's facilities to execute their own works.
Attilio's first major commission was for the John McDonogh Memorial for the city of New Orleans, begun in 1898. Among his other prominent works are the Maine Memorial, dedicated in 1913 at Columbus Circle in New York; the Firemen's Memorial Monuemnt of 1912-13, also in New York; the Monument to Youth at the Virginia Military Institute; a bust of James Monroe (State Capitol, Richmond, Virginia); a garden figure, The Joy of Life (Executive Mansion, Richmond) and a bust of Thomas Jefferson. The last was a gift from 300 French citizens to the state of Virginia for placement in the rotunda of the capital at Richmond and was based on Houdon's bust of Jefferson at the New York Historical Society. For the bust, Piccirilli was awarded the Thomas Jefferson Presidential Medal for contributions to art, education and citizenship in 1932.
Attilio was an active exhibitor at the National Academy where he showed his work first in 1908. He won the Academy's Saltus Medal for Merit in 1926 for Un Sogno di Primavera (Spring Dream) (cat. no. 218), andthe Elizabeth N. Watrous Gold Medal for Una Vergine (cat. no. 99) in the winter of 1928.
Piccifilli was a member of the Architectural League in New York and the Accademia dei Virtuosi del Pantheon in Rome, as well as president of the Italian American Art Association. In addition, he served as president of the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School in New York, an organization he helped found in 1923.
