Background
Festa was born in Rome, Italy, on November 2, 1938.
Via di Ripetta, 222, 00186 Roma RM, Italy
Tano Festa attended the Institute of Art (now Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma) in Rome and graduated in photography in 1957.
Tano Festa.
Tano Festa painting.
Tano Festa presenting his artwork.
Tano Festa with his painting.
Young Tano Festa.
Festa was born in Rome, Italy, on November 2, 1938.
Tano Festa attended the Institute of Art (now Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma) in Rome and graduated in photography in 1957.
In 1959 came Festa's first collective art exhibition, together with Franco Angeli and Giuseppe Uncini at the Galleria La Salita in Rome, where he put on his first one-man show in 1961.
His first painting production involved monochromatic geometry using paper on canvas, that got major expressive force. Actually, he intended to transform the everyday setting and objects, extrapolated from their daily status, and to perceive in their essence: roller shutters, windows, doors, cupboards and mirrors not used as functional objects but rather, in so much as they are painted, are paintings.
The Gallery "La Tartaruga" of Plinio dé Martiis moved to Piazza del Popolo in 1963 where was held the art exposition titled "13 artists in Rome". It included the same artists who created the "Piazza del Popolo School". Like a folk artist (this was the way he specified his activity during those years), Festa now directed his search towards the analysis of the Italian artistic tradition of art in the Renaissance, extrapolating and making citations of Michelangelo’s works.
In the mid-seventies, the artist worked on huge panels where appear, following the photographic technique, several extracts from frescoes of the Cappella Sistina and from the Medicians tombs realized with enamel paint on primed canvas.
Tano Festa was invited to an important art exposition held in Milan in 1966; it was dedicated to the 50th-anniversary celebration of Dadaism. Here he got acquainted with such artists as Arp and Man Ray.
During the 1970s, the artist was almost forgotten by critics and gallery directors, although he always participated in important art events. In the 1980s, he found new creative impulses. He produced the "Coriandoli" series, enormous canvases made of numerous dots of paper thrown onto a canvas filled with pictorial matter. During this period, Festa shifted to the expressionism as Ensor, Bacon, Munch, and Matisse.
The critic, attracted by his renewed creativity, once again took an interest in his oeuvre. In 1980 Tano Festa was a participant of the 40th Biennale in Venice, and in 1982 in the "Artisti Italiani 1950-1983" exhibition. Moreover, Tano Festa put a number of solo displays.
Bicromia del cielo
Elsinore
Rosso n. 29
Entreneuse
Untitled
Persiana
Confetti
Claude Monet
Albero
Untitled II
Persiana Nr. 4
Il Peccato Originale
Armadio cieco
Da Michelangelo
Finestra
Da Michelangelo
Elements of Drawing
Interno scuro
Persiana senza battente
Finestra blu
La mano dell'artista
Omaggio a Francis Bacon
Le dimensioni del cielo N 5
Da Michelangelo
Il Michelangelo
Ritratto dell'attore Alain Delon
La rotta delle rondini
Penelope
Rebus
Da Michelangelo (trittico)
Monumento a um Poeta Morto
Dei Coniugi Arnolfini
Mirella
Pialla
Omaggio alla pittura
Coriandolo
Da Michelangelo
Figura e Paesaggio
Persiana
Natura morta
Rosso n. 15
Particolare della Cappella Sistina