It is a tribute to Tom Storer, the third edition of “Artemista”, the cultural project by Samuele Bertini and Umberto Gennari from Fano who from tomorrow to 19 May will showcase an idea born during the lockdown in the little church of Suffragio: to offer everyone the possibility of browsing inside the homes of other people from Fano by sharing the works of art hanging on their walls on the Facebook group “Artisti & painters Fanesi”.
“Artemista puts a week of exhibition on the street, making the Facebook page come alive with the 5 senses” explain the curators of the exhibition entitled “Tom Storer 71“ which recalls the artist’s habit of signing the works with the last two digits of the year but also indicates the number of works exhibited. “There are 71 because 1971 is our year of birth – explain Bertini and Gennari – which is why we liked to characterize the exhibition in this way. We have reached the third edition and we thought about including it in the program (which last year had honored Generali, Marano, Palazzi and Corsaletti, ed.) an important name in post-war Fano painting”.
Tom Storer was a major in the British army who came to Fano during the war. Here he fell in love with Countess Saldini with whom he got married and although that relationship was subsequently interrupted, a stronger and more lasting one had already been born between Storer and Fano. “Here he produced 827 paintings, mostly painted inside the Roman walls – conclude Bertini and Gennari –. We will display 71 of them, belonging to around twenty artists from Fano, starting from the 1950s up to 1973, year of his death”. On display is the characteristic straw hat that the painter never failed to wear and two portraits that his young friend Pierluigi Piccinetti made of him. To complete the exhibition, a documentary by Paolo Del Bianco which in 12 minutes tells the story of the author. “I met him in ’71 when I also started exhibiting at the Accolta dei 15 – says Piccinetti – then we became friends despite the age difference: he loved me very much and respected me. In that year he invited me to go with him to San Benedetto del Tronto because there was an important impromptu event. He had booked everything. We arrived in the evening by train: we had a lot of paraphernalia with us but he traveled dressed very elegantly, with the English regimental tie then we had to go and stamp the canvases and then paint. He arrived with his clothes already covered in paint and the straw hat that will be on display. We were walking and everyone was looking at us because he looked like Van Gogh with the little house on his shoulders. We chose the lighthouse where the rope makers are, as a subject. I painted a canvas that I still have. It took him a long time to paint because I had finished it before, I started to paint a portrait of him in charcoal , takes a photo of me and then asks me to sell him the portrait, which however was not finished. Tom said to me: “sell sell!”. And I sold it. Back in Fano he said: “in San Benedetto Piccinetti sold my portraits like pizzas”. The exhibition opens on Saturday with an en plein air exhibition by the artists belonging to the Facebook group (from 3pm to 6pm) and will be visible for free every day from 6pm to 10pm.
Tiziana Petrelli
