Pinacoteca Comunale
Francesco Tabusso

The celebration of a Painter and his Territory

Fairy tales and woods and the Rubiana Art Gallery
Following the honorary citizenship conferred on him by the Municipality of Rubiana in 2016, Francesco Tabusso wants to start an installation of a Municipal Art Gallery, with the aim of developing, through the story and the enchantment of painting, the love and knowledge of nature and 'art.
He thus donated one of his paintings to the town in the Susa valley where he had spent his childhood years as a displaced person and many seasons of his life. Established in 2007 by Maestro Tabusso - following his nomination as Honorary Citizen by the Administration of Rubiana which took place the previous year - the "Fairy tales and woods" painting workshop was designed for the fifth year students of the Giuseppe Simone Girodo primary school, in order to bring them closer to the world of painting, thus encouraging development of their artistic sensitivity.

Each student was followed by an artist of the caliber of Giacomo Soffiantino, Tino Aime, Francesco Casorati, Ugo Nespolo and many others: a unique and enriching experience for our community which also led to the creation of the first group of works of the future art gallery, the result of the generous donations made by the artists themselves

The painting laboratory continued its activities on an annual basis in the manner just described until 2010, when the Master's health conditions progressively worsened. With the death of its creator on 29 January 2012, the "Fairy tales and woods" event switched to a biennial formula, preserving the original nucleus of the artistic laboratory, thanks to the support of the painter Renata Ferrari In 2016 the event is substantially renewed: on the one hand, the possibility of participating in the painting workshop is extended to third and fourth grade students; on the other, the attention is focused on Maestro Tabusso and the role he occupied in the span of contemporary painting, both national and Piedmontese. This is where the retrospectives focus on the themes, techniques and various aspects of his art originate: in 2016, the one on the Maestro's collaboration with the most important writers of the second half of the Italian twentieth century (Calvino, Soldati, Rigoni Stern...); in 2018 the deep bond established by Tabusso with the Susa valley, and with that of the Messa stream in particular, was underlined; in 2020 the first collective retrospective was created based on the Maestro and the artists (Aimone, Ruggeri, Casorati, Chessa, Soffiantino, Saroni, Campagnoli....) who had taken the first steps with him in the world of art in Turin in the 1950s