The exhibition dedicated to the “Legacy of the Mario Fornaro Family”, the new collection arrived in November 2020 at the Biellese Territory Museum, has been extended until 3 April 2022.

A body of works that reflects what the city offered culturally between the 50s and 60s and the taste that was widespread at the time among the local bourgeoisie. A collection in which the admiration for Piedmontese painters of the late nineteenth century, such as Giuseppe and Alberto Falchetti or Giuseppe Gheduzzi, was flanked by the appreciation for numerous Biellese painters including Luigi Boffa Tarlatta, Guido Mosca and Mario Carletti as well as the presence in collection of Italian twentieth century artists.

Donations, such as that of the Fornaro, are important gestures that also allow to re-emerge hitherto little known paintings and enrich the catalogs of individual artists.

There are also numerous works by local artists, still born in the nineteenth century, such as Giovanni Paolo Crida - the official painter of Don Bosco - and Luigi Boffa Tarlatta, a native of the Alta Valle del Cervo who also taught at the Albertina Academy in Turin. Looking into the following century we find the names of Guido Mosca and Pippo Pozzi, the latter from Biella by adoption such as Mario Carletti and Armando Santi, very prolific artists loved in the city.

A particular note goes to the figure of Virio da Savona, born Agamennone Virio, a Ligurian painter, who lived in Biella in the post-war years, opening “La piccola Galleria” in the same building as the Sartoria Fornaro. Luigi Barbera first and Mario Fornaro then, in the few moments of break from work, will certainly have spent a few hours admiring the works on display and carefully choosing new pieces to add to their living room.