Farewell to the artist Gianni Testa known for his famous paintings depicting horses. The artist passed away this morning in Rome. In a few days he would have turned 88. His daughter Chiara gave the news. Born in Rome on 23 October 1936, after completing his high school studies, Testa enrolled in architecture courses at the La Sapienza University of Rome and, although he passed the first two years with flying colours, he decided to leave to dedicate himself completely to painting. He met and frequented the artists Carlo Quaglia, Carlo Levi, Renato Guttuso, Ennio Calabria and later Pericle Fazzini, with whom he became friends. And Levi himself, who, seeing in his first works a certain authentic talent, which distinguished the artist from the painter, in 1962 urged him to participate and exhibit in a collective together with Quaglia, Guttuso, Mazzacurati and Domenico Purificado.
He has won many prizes, collective art exhibitions in which he has participated, from the Roman Biennale (since 1968) to the Milan Triennale and the Rome Quadrennial (since 1975), just to name a few, and just as many national competitions won, starting from the first prize at the “Italian Brandy” competition way back in 1970, up to the Lifetime Achievement Award given to him by the art critic Vittorio Sgarbi. There have been many exhibitions in Italy and abroad (Basel, New York, Philadelphia). In 2014 a large anthological exhibition was organized at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome. The funeral will be held tomorrow, at 12, in the Church of the Artists in Piazza del Popolo.