Tano Festa (1938-1988) was an artist of the of the School of Piazza del Popolo,  born in Rome, who started as a poet.

His early painting was influenced by American artists like Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta, Willem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

After exhibiting at the Galleria La Salita in 1961, between 1962 and 1963, he started in a different artistic direction, with his first works in the series Persiane, Porte, Finestre, Specchi, and Obelischi (Blinds, Doors, Windows, Mirrors, and Obelisks).

Tano Festa artworks

While his Persiane, Porte, Finestre and Specchi show the influence of Marcel Duchamp (such as his Le Grand Verre, 1915-1923 and Fresh Widow, 1920), his Obelischi were influenced less by the obelisk in Piazza del Popolo in Rome and more by Nelson’s Column he had seen during a trip to London in 1963. 

Tano Festa In Memory of London 

“Yesterday I arrived in London,” Festa wrote, “I went through Trafalgar Square where there’s the monument to Nelson. It made a huge impression on me, making me think about the obelisks, and I thought to myself that the theme has not been tapped out, and we could actually make some fantastic things. On Monday, I’ll buy a bunch of postcards of Nelson’s Column, and if I find even a small bronze cast of it (like they have of the Colosseum in Rome), when I’m in Rome I’ll use it for a large sculpture entitled “In Memory of London.”

This inspiration from London was clearly added to by Festa’s great admiration for the metaphysical work of De Chirico. A few months before, he expressed this admiration in a letter from Paris to Plinio de Martiis, talking about his excitement at having discovered an edition of the novel Les Gommes by Alain Robbe-Grillet, whose cover reproduced one of De Chirico’s Piazza d’Italia paintings. 

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