Artists

Carla Accardi belongs to the group of artists who – in the immediate post-war period – decisively contributed to Italy’s affirmation of informal art, as well as a founding member of the Italian artistic groups of Forma 1 in 1947 and Continuità in 1961. In the 1960s, she began heavily experimenting with alternation and the relationship between black and white, adopting materials other than those employed in classical painting, using for example sheets and plastic curtains as a substrate, seeking a less totemic value than the painting. The study of the basic components of black and white was applied to the preparatory drawing used to produce the Scassa tapestry, destined to be exhibited on the Raphael cruise liner, in the Gran Bar Atlantico. This true art project sees Carla Accardi’s work as part of a series of tapestries, made to design by various artists, abstract-themed works of the same size and with the same light hue of the background.

Sicilian artist Roberto Aloi expressed himself throughout his artistic career with the use of a range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, architecture and furniture. Aloi took part in five editions of the Venice Biennale, between the late 1930 and the 1950s whilst also working on publishing some forty books of art for the publisher Ulrico Hoepli in Milan. He also created works for several cruise liners – the Christopher Columbus, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael – producing paintings, repoussage and tapestries. For the Cabin Class rooms on the Michelangelo, cartons for six tapestries were produced, two of which of a considerable size, to be hung in the Bar and produced on Scassa looms. These abstract works of art present extraordinary combinations of shapes and colour, with a wealth of subtle nuances that the weaving by Arazzeria Scassa has managed to reflect with unmatched mastery, allowing free expression of the piece.

Roman artist Marcello Avenali studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Experimental Centre of Cinematography, setting up his solo exhibition at the Galleria Gallenga in Rome in 1939. Appointed as Assistant to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1941, he developed an interest in murals, creating two frescoes in S. Eugenio al Flaminio, also in Rome. Present in the main national exhibitions of the 1950s, in the 1960s Avenali’s interest turned to the tapestry technique, displaying the results at the exhibition set up with Cagli, Guttuso and Mirko Basaldella in Athens in 1964 and in Paris in 1965. Avenali had a strong bond with the Arazzeria, even speaking of Ugo Scassa as “his” tapestry guy. Numerous works by Avenali were interpreted in tapestry form, with the Abstract Composition, Fontana dell’Acqua Paola al Gianicolo, Abstract Figure, Bolla del Banco di Santo Spirito. All traces have been lost of a tapestry on Avenali’s cartoon, the Crucifixion.

Born in Udine in 1910, Mirko studied in Venice, Florence and Monza, living for a period in Rome before travelling to Paris and finally deciding to move to the United States, where he taught at Harvard University. Mirko was introduced to Scassa by Corrado Cagli, resulting in a friendship that led to the realisation of numerous tapestries. An artist with an extraordinary talent and an unmistakable style, Basaldella handed several sketches over to Ugo Scassa, which over time become splendid tapestries – one of which, the Emigranti, was commissioned by the Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York, dedicated to Anthropological Research.

A self-taught artist, painter and collaborator of the editorial staff of Casabella and Domus from 1938 to 1941, Olimpia Bernini married architect Vincenzo Monaco in 1942. Together with partner Amedeo Luccichenti, the latter was tasked with creating the furniture for the 1st Class area of the Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo cruise liners. Olimpia had the opportunity to create a cartoon, from which the 1959 Abstract tapestry was produced. The work falls entirely within contemporary informal dialogue, produced throughout this period by several Italian artists, interested in developing in Italy a cultural and artistic panorama with an international air. 

An icon of contemporary art, as recognisable as any great artist of our time, Botero’s works find in the frame and tapestry a perfect dimension, a natural projection in a soft material and a world created with cotton and wool, a tapestry that amplifies the artist’s message, being so attentive to geometric excess and the overlapping of spaces and colour. Botero’s inspiration combines many aspects taken from European art, not least Italian works. Indeed, Botero lived in Italy for a long time, in the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta in the province of Lucca, famous for its marble quarries.

Coming from the cultured environment of the Capitoline nobility, Giuseppe Capogrossi was an active component of the Roman School, together with Corrado Cagli and a large number of artists, including men of letters such as Giuseppe Ungaretti, who embarked on an artistic journey approaching expressionist sensibilities. Capogrossi began his artistic activity by learning from the greats, copying Michelangelo and Piero della Francesca to undertake personal studies that would lead him in an almost natural and fluid way towards abstract painting.

He was invited to have some of his drawings included in the realisation of significant tapestry works to be displayed firstly in the Leonardo da Vinci cruise liner and then on the Michelangelo, thus forging a connection with the tapestry atelier that developed into a lasting friendship with Ugo Scassa.

Felice Casorati dominated with his deep artistic intelligence, also dictated by a plurality of interests that strongly linked him to music and the Italian artistic environments at the beginning of the 20th century. He was the promoter of a painting school in Turin, on Via Mazzini, active since 1921 and from which emerged artists such as Lalla Romano, Carlo Levi and Daphne Maugham, who he married in 1930. Casorati and Scassa met at the request of the former, who wanted to gift one of his artworks to be transformed into a carpet. Subsequently, a number of tapestries were woven at the request of Felice’s son, Francesco Casorati, also a painter and who in turn commissioned Scassa to complete a tapestry of his work, Passeri Blu.

Clerici was a painter, architect, set designer, costume designer, photographer and friend of some of the most important artists, critics, musicians and writers of the 20th century, winning national and international awards for his works that are today exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and at the MoMA, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and in the Vatican Museums. After moving to Rome in 1920, Clerici graduated from the Scuola Superiore di Architettura in 1937, after years of intense study. A strong interest in history, for Roman vestiges, and a deep love for Renaissance and Baroque painting and architecture would persist in him, along with an archaeological interest that would lead him on numerous journeys. His art would touch various artistic movements, especially Surrealism, having met Dalí and forged a deep friendship with the artist. Clerici and the Arazzeria Scassa came into contact through a mutual friendship with Corrado Cagli – indeed, Clerici frequented the same Roman environment of artists and cultural personalities as Cagli.

An artist with an extensive career, throughout the course of his production, he experimented with various forms of expression, ranging from painting to plaster, from enamels to metals. During the 20th century, his name was amongst the main avant-garde artistic movements, being secretary of the Art Club and subsequently a collaborator of the Fondazione Origine as well as an exponent of the Concrete Art Movement. It would be through the latter environment that in the mid-1960s, he and other artists would participate in the creation of works of art for the Raphael cruise liner, creating the cartoon for the tapestry Abstract, 1963. 

A musician of national and international note, Paolo Conte was born in Asti, hailing from a family of lawyers and was actually a lawyer himself. A long-time friend of Ugo Scassa, they bonded over their mutual passion for art. The tapestry Abstract Composition is based on a drawing created by Paolo Conte and belongs to a group of artworks commissioned for the new Courthouse in Asti. Reference is made to the experience and artistic journey of the 20th century, in an infinite number of changes in direction and intense colouristic performances that closely recall the season of Expressionism, especially in the use of bright reds, alive, without searching for tonal harmonies or sophisticated nuances but rather, of a colour that is a symptom of something deep and symbolic, a drafting of the material that is an “expression” of feeling. In this tapestry made on the Scassa looms, Paolo Conte’s hand is interpreted in an intriguing play of shades that constrict and enhance the dark features.

An international artist, born in Tunis to parents of Sicilian origin, he frequented post-impressionist, cubist and fauves circles, permanently settling in Italy as of 1945. Over time, Corpora collaborated with various Italian publications on the themes of painting and literature, vigorously supporting the reasons for opening an Italian culture up to the great European movements of the 1900s. Throughout those years, Corpora painted figurative works, especially landscapes and still-lifes, before starting in 1934 to alternative with abstract compositions. These works show a colouristic sensitivity, a post-impressionist and fauve matrix that would accompany him throughout his undertakings. In Rome, he frequented the studio of Renato Guttuso, with his works and various writings forming part of the lively cultural climate of the immediate post-war period. Three Corpora cartoons were selected to become as many tapestries for the Leonardo da Vinci cruise liner.

One of the most famous artists of the 20th century and a prominent figure in the Surrealist and Dadaist current, Dalí returned to the horizon of the Arazzeria Scassa when a collector from Piedmont asked and obtained permission to make a tapestry taken from an engraving by the famous Spanish hand. The drawing in question dates back to 1968, hence a mature production by the artist who, born at the beginning of the century and an early genius in modern painting, had such a rich artistic life. The Harlequin, as the subject of the tapestry, has lyrical and poetic intonations, sees an infinite number of nuances form the backdrop to the figure of the musician-puppet.

Ugo Scassa met Giorgio de Chirico, the pioneer of metaphysical art, in 1976 in Rome, during a visit to the Galleria Ca’ d’Oro in Via Condotti. On this occasion, the artist expressed the desire to see his work transformed into a tapestry – an idea that excited not only the tapestry maker but also Corrado Cagli who asked to be present at the meeting. Unfortunately, Cagli passed before the appointment, followed by de Chirico himself two years later. The project was thus set aside until meeting Nicolò Martinico, a Sicilian gallerist friend of de Chirico who arranged to have Scassa meet with his widow Isa. The tapestry artist went to her home on Via Trinità dei Monti in Rome, where Isabella Pakszwer proved to be in favour of the idea. The agreements were drawn up and are now preserved in the archives of the Fondazione de Chirico. The project gave rise to seven different tapestries being completed over time.

From Livorno, Roberto Ercolini studied at the Art Institute of his hometown and subsequently exhibited in Milan and in several collectives as of 1955. He gradually gravitated towards abstract art, dissolving the form, to be initially transformed into a world, a sort of coloured machine, then translating aspects and gestures into a firmer vision, alternating white and grey. For the Italian Raffaello cruise liner, he made the cartoon for the tapestry Abstract, 1963 – a work that formed part of a broader creative project that included a harmonious set of twenty-one tapestries, in the same size and with the same neutral background colour.

When Max Ernst – an artist born in Cologne – fled Europe with the help of his future wife, Peggy Guggenheim, the foundations for Surrealism were already present and had borne their early fruit. As one of the most famous artists of this artistic trend, Max Ernst experimented with different and new artistic expressions, such as frottage and grattage, along with encountering numerous artists throughout his life, with whom shared interests and aspirations. He would end up being part of surrealist activities until continuous conflicts with André Breton led Ernst to abandon the group in 1938. He became part of Arazzeria Scassa’s history with the realisation of a number of works at the request of private clients, who turned to the artist in order to obtain permission to weave tapestries from his works. Ernst considered the great cloths woven in Asti as proof of a love for his paintings, promising to visit the Arazzeria Scassa himself one day.

Born in Naples at the beginning of the 20th century, Edoardo Giordano initially frequented the artistic circles closest to him, before later moving to Milan and Paris, where he hung out with Pablo Picasso and the French-naturalised Russian painter Chaïm Soutine. Thanks also to a desire to express himself through the use of strong chromatics, his artistic maturity would lead Giordano towards abstract painting, entering into dealings with exponents of the MAC, as the Movimento Arte Concreta (Concrete Art Movement) founded in Milan with the aim and desire to renew art according to a total principle, in which all expressive and artistic aspects are involved in this new beginning. Giordano also produced a drawing for the tapestries of the Raphael cruise liner.

An international and multifaceted artist, Ezio Gribaudo today represents the artistic memory of the great seasons of contemporary art, having experienced first-hand and been a protagonist of revolutions from the early 20th century to today. A student firstly at the Accademia di Brera and then at the Politecnico di Torino, Gribaudo came into contact with the most important artistic personalities, travelling about Europe, the United States and South America. On these trips, he met many artists, never losing touch with the most important national and international artistic realities. In 1976, he convinced Peggy Guggenheim to exhibit part of his extensive and significant collection at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna in Turin, where Gribaudo had his own studio. The project and the idea of creating a tapestry, woven at the Arazzeria Scassa, came about on the occasion of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican organised by Pope John XXIII in 1965.

Milanese by birth, Guenzi studied in Monza and at the Brera Academy in Milan, gradually approaching the most innovative artistic examples, such as those delineated on the canvas of Jackson Pollock and Nicolas De Staël. The intensity of Guenzi’s oil painting alternated various experiences, the transparency of gouaches, watercolours and drawings, combining traces and textures that were refined yet dense, with a hand that always draws from a broad semantic spectrum in a perfect balance, from scratching to almost geometric hatching. Guenzi produced the drawing Abstract, 1963 for the Raphael cruise liner, thus contributing to the series of twenty-one tapestries created for the Gran Bar Atlantico.

A strong and significant voice of 20th-century painting, Renato Guttuso transported Italian art into the political context with vigour and determination, linking his pictorial studies to reality, flanking such political and social themes to traditional types of subjects such as nudes, portraits, still-lifes and landscapes. Renato Guttuso and Ugo Scasa met in the early 1960s thanks to their mutual friendship with Corrado Cagli. The woven cloth, chosen by Guttuso, presented great difficulties in the transposition into a tapestry. The extraordinary work produced on the Asti looms was first seen by Corrado Cagli, who laid claim to that right in the name of friendship. Guttuso advised Scassa to continue producing tapestries, without listening to opinions and advice, but to proceed as such, with his wonderful, ancient art.

Today, Kandinsky is recognised as one of the great artists of the 20th century and considered the first to have painted completely abstract works. Born in Moscow, he obtained excellent results at University yet decided to refuse an offer to teach Roman Law at the University of Dorpat, moving to Monaco instead and studying art first privately then at the Academy of Fine Arts. Thus began his journey, which would lead Kandinsky to one of the most important artistic endeavours of the 20th century. His experiments gradually became more intense and profound, as the figurative legacy gave way to a new language that the tapestry amplifies and magnifies.

Paul Klee, the celebrated Swiss artist, taught at Bauhaus and was a protagonist of one of the most representative creative experiences of the 20th century, as well as being one of Ugo Scassa’s most favoured modern artists. Thirteen works by Klee were transposed into a tapestry, some of which are now part of private collections, whilst others entered into the Scassa Collection. In constant movement, the dynamic colouristic interpretation that Klee describes in his critical texts and confers to his compositions was particularly appreciated by the Asti tapestry maker. Indeed, in some way they mirrored the concept of colour and movement that best interpreted the same technique of movement and colour creation in the weaving of tapestry.

Having trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Beatrice Lazzari began her artistic career by moving to Rome. Here, she would be able to experiment with expressions that would progressively remove her from the figurative tradition, becoming a successful painter exhibiting in the most important events throughout the course of her career. In the late 1950s, Lazzari decided to abandon oil painting, adopting the use of alternative materials such as sand, glue, silk, plaster, tempera and acrylic, before beginning to produce monochrome works in graphite as of 1964, for which she is often recognised. Considered one of the most original artists of her generation, Lazzari created a preparatory cartoon for the tapestry woven by Scassa for the Raphael cruise liner.

In the Certosa di Asti laboratory where numerous tapestries were made bearing the signature of Umberto Mastroianni, a partnership between Ugo Scassa and the artist (who lived in Turin for an extensive period) was strengthened after a solo show by Mastroianni, sixteen years following their initial meeting. A friend of Luigi Spazzapan and Corrado Cagli, Mastroianni willingly shared his time with the tapestry master, exchanging ideas and concepts of art. For the tapestries on drawings by Mastroianni – a sculptor with a powerful and distinctive personal figure – wools in an infinite number of colours were used, including gold and silver threads to embellish and better recall the solidity of metals, so dear to the artist’s own productions. A total of twenty-two were produced, the greatest production after that arising from the collaboration with Corrado Cagli.

An internationally-renowned artist, he would initially be part of the artistic trend of the Fauves before subsequently joining in on new experiments in forms and colours, thanks above all to a series of trips to the Middle East and Algeria, with the desire to explore African art. This would result in important changes to his art, including – for example – the use of black as colour for all effects. His intense, almost pure, un-patterned colours express a feeling of joy through vivid and bright motifs. Colour in Matisse’s art is never a simple ornament, a filling of space or – even worse – embellishment but the main instrument for the realisation of the work itself. All of these important colouristic aspects are fully reflected in the art of Arazzeria Scassa in Asti.

Joan Miró, a Spanish artist born in Barcelona, completed his artistic studies before organising his first solo show in 1918. The environment at that time was impacted by important tremors of change hailing from Fauvism to Cubism. Miró decided to head to Paris to get to know Picasso. In search of a personal artistic extent, he transferred his interest to Surrealism, forming an important friendship with Max Ernst and embarking on a production that was instinctive and authentic, with a taste for lines and colour that would make him famous. Mainly engaged in the creation of tapestries, Ugo Scassa would also create a carpet taken from one of the Spanish artist’s works.

From Florence and having trained under the guidance of Felice Carena, Luigi Montanarini was one of the protagonists of the Scuola Romana, moving permanently to Rome to orient his pictorial research towards issues related to space, light and colour. At the end of the Second World War, Montanarini joined with Pericle Fazzini, Enrico Prampolini, Joseph Jarema and Virgilio Guzzi to form the artistic movement known as the Art Club, based in Via Margutta in Rome, as an artistic experience that would come to an end in 1964, when the combination of figurative and abstract took over the revolution of Pop Art. Montanarini frequented the art historian Lionello Venturi, after the latter had returned to Italy following exile during the fascist period. His artistic choices led him to experiment with decidedly expressionist works and to follow increasingly abstract pieces, moving the brush to create graphic markings balanced by a use of expertly-dosed colour. Like other artists of the Art Club, he would create a preparatory cartoon for one of the tapestries of the Raphael cruise liner to be woven in Asti.

Francesco Muzzi was a promoter of several cultural initiatives and a long-time curator of the important Archivio Cagli in Rome, as well as having been an assistant for and collaborator with Corrado Cagli as a student. Muzzi met Ugo Scassa thanks to Cagli, resulting in a long friendship focused on creating events aimed at keeping the memory of the maestro from Le Marche alive. At the same time, Scassa produced a number tapestries taken from works by Muzzi, in particular a collection of figures from the series on zodiac signs, which the Calabrian artist had in turn created inspired by the works of Corrado Cagli. These are the celebrated Carte, being interesting experiments that Cagli performed by giving the figures and the surrounding space the appearance of a surface fragmented into facets. Such artistic effects are also called “frottage” and were developed during the 20th century by Marcel Duchamp.

Born in Vienna during the Second World War, Novelli partook in partisan activities, with dramatic vicissitudes, before immediately commencing his studies, earning his degree in Political Science from Florence in 1947. With a desire to dedicate himself to art, he travelled to Brazil and France, approaching the Dadaists starting to produce ceramics in 1955, exhibiting collages, as well as creating graphic works, sets, sculptures, and objects in lead and glass. Novelli took part in the creation of a cartoon for the Raphael cruise liner, offering up a liberal artistic score that was dense, almost naïve yet immediate, representative of inner rhythms. 

Giovanni Omiccioli came into contact with the Roman School, in particular Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël with a distinctive ability to rapidly develop brush strokes and bold touches of colour, always with a balance between bitter descriptive veracity and deep lyricism. The works that mark the years of the Second World War represent the world and the social happenings in the poorest neighbourhoods, painted with brushstrokes that greatly reflect expressionist painting, between the social denunciation and wonder of a landscape explored through its most poetic aspects. This is the case with the work transformed into fabric and woven by Arazzeria Scassa, in a representation of a space full of vivid, warm and contrasting colours, with bright red, blue and yellow forming areas of almost abstract painting.

A teacher of Pictorial Decoration at the Istituto Statale d’Arte in Rome, Pace founded the Gruppo Uno together with other artists, with whom he collaborated until 1964. In touch with German Expressionism and the work of Paul Klee, Pace created a series of informal experiments to which filiform materials were added. Following the activities of American Action Painting, which reached Italian shores following the war, Pace eventually deviated from this path. After the death of Jackson Pollock, he increasingly turned to textures; the thread of cotton that was used at first in a shapeless and gestural way takes on greater structure, to become almost constructive in the artistic system itself. Pace also created a sketch for the Raphael cruise liner, which was transformed into a tapestry by Arazzeria Scassa that is now preserved in Rome.

A creative mind, already active even before having earned his degree in Architecture, awarded in Lausanne in 1950. He worked as an architect and designer, developing innovative solutions, arising also from the meeting with Bruno Munari and Lucio Fontana. Together with his wife Luisa Aiani, he founded the Studio La Ruota in 1948, which ceased activity only in 1995. His legacy is expressed not only through urban interventions but also thanks to designs, ink drawings, glass and ceramics. For the Raphael cruise liner, Parisi created a preparatory sketch for the series of 21 tapestries, all in the same shape, size and with the same colour background.

Having earned a degree in Literature in 1945 with a thesis on metaphysical painting by Giorgio de Chirico, and having been a speaker at the discussions on Lionello Venturi, Achille Perilli joined with other painters to found an artistic experimentation group before later approaching the Russian Avant-gardes. He frequented the studio of Renato Guttuso, coming into contact with Antonio Sanfilippo, Giulio Turcato, Enrico Prampolini and Gino Severini, before heading to Paris where, introduced by Venturi, he was able to participate in the first International Congress of Art Critics. He remained in touch with many artists, approaching Dadaism at the end of the 1950s, then founding a design publishing house and collaborating in the realisation of a cartoon for the Raphael cruise liner. 

In 1997, the Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn organised the Out of the Blue exhibition, displaying a series of projects by Italian architect Renzo Piano. For the occasion, Piano commissioned Arazzeria Scassa to create a carpet and two tapestries, with the idea being to enrich the exhibition by presenting not only important drawings, projects and relief maps but also something different – the transposition of projects into woven fabrics.

Piano welcomed Ugo Scassa and his wife Catia Alcaro to his studio in Genoa, to discuss which drawings to select. In order to present the main characteristics of tapestry, the tapestry master carried with him a woven fabric based on the work of Joan Miró – lacking the real nuances the Spanish artist would have better represented in the overall effect of what would have been the creations on the loom sought after by Renzo Piano.

Luigi Picciotti participated in the imperative period of Italian art that made the Milan district of Brera famous, breathing in the innovative and dynamic atmosphere, sharing in the enthusiasm, the desire to experiment, to live with art and in art. He began his artistic career looking for an independent and signature style, passing within a few years from surfaces full of earth tones to greys and brown, to make way for a painting style that looks to the informal whilst still maintaining a formal distance. In the paintings completed around the mid-1960s, to which belongs the sketch for the tapestry hung within the Raphael cruise liner, Picciotti marked the culmination of his production, in which the starting point is always a reference to reality. 

Giuseppe Picone completed classical studies and even graduated with a Law Decree but the reference to art drove him forward as a self-taught artist, experimenting with painting, graphics and ceramics. After a brief apprenticeship as a lawyer, Picone assisted his father in the family glassware business, being fascinated by the many possibilities that glass and ceramics share. He left his father’s workshop to embark on a career that would lead him to experiment with different creative artistic languages, approaching furniture as well as fashion and fabric creation. In 1964, Picone was called upon to create a cartoon for the realisation of a tapestry for the Raphael cruise liner.

Mimmo Rotella is one of the most prominent figures of the 20th century, connected to the Nouveau Réalisme and international Pop Art movements. Post-war, Rotella began experimenting with and researching the use of unusual materials and techniques in the artistic field, exhibiting in Rome, London and Paris, before spending time in the United States where he won over the interest of critics in a short time. An incessant experimenter, he adopted several photomechanical processes of image reproduction. In 1964, Rotella created a tapestry for the Raphael cruise liner, re-proposing the effect sought-after on paper, of fracturing and overlapping.

An artist like no other, Henri Rousseau worked for about twenty years as a tax collector in the municipal office of the Paris Customs House, a profession that earned him the nickname of ‘Customs Officer’. Throughout this same period, the desire to dedicate himself to painting grew, without finding any interesting feedback from critics or the public. His visions of dream and folk fairy-tale were nevertheless appreciated by some intellectuals, who perceived the attention on form and the study of colour, which the artist expressed above all in the intricate detail of dense lush vegetation. An artist that may have appeared naïve and uncultured instead was part of the important innovative ferments of his era, with recognition of his productions first coming from personalities such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Odilon Redon, Paul Gauguin, Robert Delaunay, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. 

Piero Sadun was involved in the activities of the Roman School, studying the works of Mario Mafai and Giorgio Morandi in particular, following a training pathway that would lead him to the post-cubist and post-metaphysical. After the 1960s, Sadun modulated the pictorial rendering towards more intense vibrations, full-bodied mixtures of matter and colours subtly stretched in dilated wefts. Especially in the last period of his artistic activities, this created informal art that was personal and internalised, with unique lighting effects. The tapestry created by Piero Sadun for the Raphael cruise liner was part of the series of tapestries in the same format and with a similar colour background, created for the Grande Bar Atlantico. 

Giuseppe Santomaso perceived the matrix of his hometown of Venice as an artistic imprint underlying his many experiences that began with the important interaction with avant-garde art. Santomaso travelled to the Netherlands for a direct encounter with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and the art of the Fauves. It was at this point that a second chromatic component joined the colouristic tradition, the careful study of Van Gogh’s art, such as to be present in the artist’s latest works. Over time, Santomaso’s interest turned to focus on the inexhaustive search for harmony and balance.

Giuseppe Santomaso will perceive the Venetian matrix, his hometown, as an artistic imprint underlying his numerous experiences that begin in the important confrontation with avant-garde art. He will travel to the Netherlands, for a direct confrontation with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and the art of the Fauves. It is at this point that a second chromatic element joins the coloristic tradition, the careful study of Van Gogh's art, such as to be present in the artist's latest works. Over time his interest will focus on the inexhaustible search for harmony and balance.

Born in Argentina to Sicilian parents, Antonio Scordia trained by studying in Paris and London, exhibiting at the Venice Biennale as of 1952 and partaking in exhibitions in several Italian and foreign cities. In the informal context, he created a personal language with spatial surfaces organised through a special dialogue, sometimes with very distant references to the natural world. A multifaceted artist, Scordia collaborated in the realisation of pictorial decorations for the set design of the film Satyricon by Federico Fellini. In the mid-1960s, he was involved in the realisation of a preparatory cartoon for a tapestry destined for the Raphael cruise liner.

Mario Sironi is undoubtedly an important part of Italy’s rich past, not only from a strictly artistic point of view but also historical. Along the entire ridge of the 20th century, he created a language that was personal, disruptive, favouring the power of the line, used almost as a dramatic medium. We are faced with strong and radical revolutions, in the figurative search that is charged with desolate worlds, plumbic skies with an industrial flavour, acidic colours that mix with dark shadows. These are certainly memories of a dramatic hinterland, which place the subjects in an environment marked by the presence of black lines, mixed with the colours of the earth. The work Il Lavoro, produced as a tapestry, is part of Sironi’s interesting pseudo-abstract production. Shapes that are elementary, or at times more complex, dilate on the almost monochrome surface.

Luigi Spazzapan met Ugo Scassa in Turin, when Scassa managed Il Prisma Art Gallery. The Tapestry master would

always send invitations to the Friulian artist to attend the art openings but he merely passed by peer in, trying to see what was going on inside the Gallery without ever stepping inside. He considered this Casorati territory, given the presence of Scroppo who was the assistant to the Chair of Painting at the Accademia Albertina, teaching Felice Casorati, as well as being a business partner of Scassa. When Ugo Scassa was contacted by the Rai station of Turin about a quote for some paintings that the company wanted to have created as Christmas gifts, one of the first names mentioned was Luigi Spazzapan, at which time the artist realised that Il Prisma was not hostile territory and that, indeed, Mr Scassa liked his work. From this, interesting and unique interpolations were born between Spazzapan’s painting and tapestry art.

A tireless researcher, Federico Spoltore explored various fields, including studying the human figure, landscape painting, veristic works and sacred art, before finally coming to non-figurative painting, understood as an invisible dimension made visible thanks to space and above all, to a specific use of colour. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, taking a number of trips that allowed him to come into contact with various realities. Spoltore was an internationally-known portraitist, receiving several public commissions to depict public figures, including Truman, Einstein and Pope Pius XI. Spoltore was even asked to contribute a drawing for the realisation of a tapestry for the Raphael cruise liner.

A multifaceted personality dedicated to many creative fields, Emilio Tadini threw himself into his painting and writing, the latter as a poet, essayist, playwright, translator and journalist. His pictorial experience

developed in later stages, initially influenced by English Pop Art, De Chirico’s painting and Pablo Picasso. Tadini developed an original expressive language, dedicated to the representation of a dreamlike dimension, without neglecting incursions into sculpture, with creations in glass and iron, in the design of both textiles and furniture, as well as advertising images. Tadini collaborated with several companies such as Renault, Costa Crociere, Swatch, Henry Glass and the Gazzetta dello Sport, with his image used for the 84th tour of Italy. The tapestry made by Arazzeria Scassa was dedicated to the world of cycling and the race called Sei Giorni delle Rose (Six Days of the Rose), a competition on the track held each July at the Attilio Pavesi velodrome, at the Municipal Stadium of Fiorenzuola. The athletes involved compete across six days of competitions.

A student who attended high school with an artistic major in Rome, over the years he spent time with Domenico Purificato, Pericle Fazzini, Sante Monachesi, Luigi Montanarini and Corrado Cagli. Trotti approached the art of Henri Matisse and Cubism with a style of painting strongly directed towards the study of intense colour, with a pictorial thinking well presented in the sketch for Abstract, which went on to become a tapestry. He also dabbled in photography, creating abstract oils on glass and cellophane, then exploring different techniques, researching a new colouristic dialogue, analysing black and white and black with black.

Part of the Forma 1 group, Giulio Turcato completed artistic training in Venice before having works shown in several exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. He later spent time in Paris and travelled throughout the East, before reaching New York in 1957. Over time, his abstractionism took on a unique and original dimension, with a path in some ways contrary to that of Emilio Vedova, now projected towards the violence of the sign. Turcato, rather, was gradually cooling his creations, with colours that seem to emerge from inside the canvas onto the surface, using heterogeneous materials such as sand. He participated in the creation of works for the Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo cruise lines.

Amongst the many works created on the looms of the Asti tapestry atelier was a tapestry taken from a 15th-century work. When Ugo Scassa was asked to create a historic, figurative tapestry, the tapestry artist was immediately against it, despite it being a question of granting the wish of a deceased wife. The client did not give up and in view of their insistence, Ugo Scassa had an idea: he could create a figurative tapestry taken from the production of an artist that is modern himself, with a hand that was unmistakable and original even after almost 600 years. The choice fell to Paolo Uccello and the result was The Hunt in the Forest, a work safeguarded at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The tempera on board, one of the latest creations attributed to the artist, depicts a scene of hunting by night, the setting a vast forest immersed in a suspended atmosphere of a fairy-tale, populated by knights, servants, hunting dogs and prey.

Fascinated by the world of art as a young man, the self-taught Venetian Emilio Vedova began to paint, exhibiting after actively participating in the Resistance. He was a common figure in several artistic environments, coming into contact with Renato Guttuso and Renato Birolli. Subsequently, he took part in the activities of the Gruppo degli Otto, passing from an initial interest in Neocubism to painting with political-existential themes, before reaching an artistic expression linked to the instances of the Informal. Vedova lived a part of his life in Berlin, during the 1960s, with the desire to experience first-hand the social fears and tensions of the period, becoming one of the most authoritative artistic voices. Of the two tapestries woven in Asti, for which he prepared the cartoons, one disappeared – evidently having been stolen during the route that the Raphael cruise liner undertook between Naples and Genoa – with no trace of the work since. Someone removed the work from the wall, unhooking the tapestries from the press studs, before likely folding it and smuggling it away in a suitcase.

Born in New York to Sicilian emigrants, Antonio Virduzzo completed his artistic studies first in Sicily and later at an arts-focused high school in Florence, winning a national painting competition. During the Second World War, Virduzzo returned to Sicily where he worked as a restorer. After attending the Accademia Albertina in Turin and the school of painting in Casorati, he emigrated to the United States in 1946. In 1949, Virduzzo returned to Italy, where resumed his studies at the Accademia di Roma, holding his first solo show in 1956. Virduzzo organised important exhibitions of American abstract painting in Italy, collaborating with a number of avant-garde art magazines. What’s more, he created a series of colour etchings and began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania. The circular graphic marking that characterises some of his particularly interesting productions returns in the sketch created for the tapestry of the Raphael cruise liner.

Today known around the world, Andy Warhol is in all respects one of the symbols of Pop Art; a multifaceted artist, capable of combining candour and disenchantment, suspended between profound inhibitions and artistic shock that would change the world. He began his Flowers series in the mid-1960s, with two important exhibitions – the first in New York, the second in Paris – hosted in prestigious galleries, as iconic locations of the artistic evolution of the time. The theme of flowers, very dear to art, is reproduced here in a repetitive way, as Warhol was wont to do with the icons of his universe, corollas outlined with a direct yet almost childish design. The choice of Ugo Scassa, a devoted connoisseur of contemporary art, offers up and interprets the design of the New York artist, drawing a truly precious carpet of art from the play of flowers.

Tono Zancanaro was called up in 1926 for National Service in Turin, where his approach towards the world of art began, visiting the museums around the city. After his military service, Zancanaro worked for some time at a bank, continuing with great annoyance this occupation that nevertheless put him in contact with an interesting circle of people. Zancanaro began to travel, a habit that he would continue throughout his life, in the desire to know new places, new people and make new friends. From May to July 1956, Zancanaro was in China, after having accepted an invitation to study together with Agenore Fabbri, Antonietta Raphael Mafai, Aligi Sassu, Ampelio Tettamanti and Giulio Turcato. The time in China proved fundamental for the evolution of Tono Zancanaro’s art, leaving deep traces in his manner of expressing himself for the rest of his life. He continued to travel and organise exhibitions wherever possible, always seeking new and stimulating human encounters. It was in a subsequent evolution that he discovered the processing of ceramics and terracotta, continuing his travels between Florence, Rome and Ferrara, where in 1972 he organised Ferrara’s first true anthological exhibition, held in Palazzo dei Diamanti. The reception from the public and the press came as a confirmation of an artistic journey that had truly matured.

Venetian by birth, Nino Zoncada studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the lagoon city, joining the Furnishing Office of the Trieste Naval Shipyard of Monfalcone in 1923 to be part of significant years of transition during which the development of new naval and furnishing technologies was accompanied by the expression of new artistic and architectural languages. Zoncada came into contact with the most noteworthy architects and artists on the scene between the late-1940s and 1960s. The meeting between Zoncada and Gio Ponti proved fundamental in the development of all these occasions. Zoncada even won a competition for the set-up of a range of First Class areas on both the Leonardo da Vinci ocean liner and the prestigious Michelangelo cruise liner.

Carla Accardi

Roberto Aloi

Marcello Avenali

Mirko Basaldella

Olimpia Bernini

Fernando Botero

Corrado Cagli

Giuseppe Capogrossi

Felice and Francesco Casorati

Fabbrizio Clerici

Michelangelo Conte

Paolo Conte

Unknown bodies

Salvador Dali

Giorgio de Chirico

Roberto Ercolini

Max Ernst

Edoardo Giordano

Ezio Gribaudo

Costantino Guenzi

Renato Guttuso

Vassily Kandinsky

Paul Klee

Beatrice Lazzari

Umberto Mastroianni

Henri Matisse

Joan Miró

Luigi Montanarini

Francesco Muzzi

Gastone Novelli

Giovanni Omiccioli

Achille Pace

Ico Parisi

Achille Perilli

Renzo Piano

Luigi Piciotti

Giuseppe Picone

Mimmo Rotella

Henri rousseau

Piero Sadun

Antonio Sanfilippo

Giuseppe Santomaso

Antonio Scordia

Mario Sironi

Luigi Spazzapan

Federico Spoltore

Emilio Tadini

Alessandro Trotti

Giulio Turcato

Paolo Uccello

Emilio Vedova

Antonio Virduzzo

Andy Wahrol

Tono Zancanaro

Nino Zoncada