Anna SOGNO ARBORIO MELLA (Ello, Como, 1923 – Turin, 2004)
Anna Sogno’s artistic talent was directly derived from the cultural interests within her own family. The paternal great great-grandfather founded the Academy of Fine Arts of Vercelli, afterwards directed and expanded by her great-grandfather, and her maternal great-grandmother was a good painter of the school of Palizzi.
Immediately after the war, she married Edgardo Sogno and in the twenty succeeding years accompanied him to various diplomatic posts.
1940-43, she attended the courses of the Academy of Brera in Milan, as a student of painting of Achille Funi and Aldo Carpi. In that period she also attended the studios of the sculptors Messina and Manzù.
1943-44, her friend the painter Guido Tallone encouraged her to persist in her artistic activity. In Paris, for a while she followed the courses of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
1954-60, she executed misty landscapes after the manner of Lombard school of the nineteenth century. In 1957, the first solo exhibition in Milan.
1960-67, she stayed in the United States, first in Philadelphia, then Washington. In that period she produced works marked by cemeteries of cars and by the outskirts of the big cities.
1967-70, she stayed in Burma, where she depicted the pagodas of Rangoon, Mandalay, Shwedagon and the colorful local markets.
1971, she settled in Turin, where she painted the outskirts, the local markets, the meadows in flower.
From 1957 she exhibited regularly in Italy and abroad, receiving prestigious awards such as, in 2003, the Ambrogino d’Oro by the Municipality of Milan for her artistic achievements.
Her works are in many public collections in Italy and abroad, including the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington and the Modern Art Gallery in Turin.