Tista Meschi Biography
(Lucca 1938) In 1954, after graduating in painting from the State Institute of Art, he attended an advertising graphics course sponsored by the Ministry of Education in Rome with a scholarship. He began his artistic activity in those years and participated in various youth exhibitions in Rome and Lazio. In 1960 he was appointed painting teacher at the Art Institute of Bari where he participated in various personal exhibitions in private galleries until 1964, the year in which he exhibited at the Biennale del Maggio in Bari and won the 'Coreglia' Prize in Lucca. The following year he won the 'Pera Vorno' Award again in Lucca where he would return definitively the following year following his appointment as professor of Life Drawing and Visual Education at the Art Institute of that city. The intense exhibition activity continued until recognition in 1970, when he received the City of Imperia Award, the gold medal from the President of the Republic. He continued throughout the seventies and eighties to exhibit in galleries in Prato, Florence, Pistoia and Milan. In 1975 he participated in the important exhibition 'Pittura 75 in Toscana' at the Palazzo Ducale in Lucca, in 1979 he won the 'Giuliano di Roma international figurative arts prize' and created the 'Tovarobe', an original exhibition of objects and various curiosities created personally. 1987 was the year of Sicilian exhibitions, he exhibited at the 'Il Quadrifoglio' gallery in Syracuse, at the 'L'Androne' gallery in Scicli (Ragusa) and participated in the 'Ibla Mediterraneo' prize in Modica (Ragusa). In 1988 he participated with his friends Piero Guccione and Franco Sarnari in the exhibition 'Guccione, Meschi, Sarnari', bringing their historic friendship to the Galleria Guerrieri in Lucca. In 1994 he took part in the exhibition 'Donations to the Licia and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti Foundation', a Foundation which would also call him the following year to participate in the 'Toscana Dipinta' exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Cologne (Germany), in care of the Lucca Foundation itself. The years 1998 and '99 are years of homage; the first to Pinocchio created with a traveling exhibition entitled 'Journey with Pinocchio' organized by the Carlo Collodi National Foundation, the next is 'Homage to Puccini' in Torre del Lago.
