Giovanni Rovero Biography
ROVERO GIOVANNI. Born in Mongardino (Asti) on 19 October 1885 to Giuseppe and Teodora Rovero and died in Noli (Savona) on 24 August 1971. Pupil of Giacomo Grosso and Paolo Gaidano, he attended the Accademia Albertina in Turin, where he achieved numerous prizes and won the biennial competition for a scholarship established by the Ministry of Education. In 1913 in Milan he was awarded the Fumagalli Prize for landscape. After the first European war, he dedicated himself to sacred art, drawing inspiration in particular from the Gospels, illustrating the most salient facts of the latter. Some of these illustrations appeared at the Turin Quadrennial of 1919, with a Landscape. He then took part in the Sacred Art Exhibition organized in Venice in 1920, in which an entire room was reserved for his works; at a Roman Biennial, at which the Ministry of Education chose one of his paintings to send to the Italian Art Exhibition which took place in Brighton in 1926; he also participated in the Venice Biennale in 1920, with Luce tra le tenebre; at the Turin Quadrennial of 1923, with Marina and Massacre of the Innocents; at the Venice Biennale the following year, with Pianto sul mare; to that of 1928, with In church at mass; at the last Turin Quadrennial (1927) with Multiplication of the Loaves and the aforementioned In Chiesa a Messa. In 1942 he exhibited "Paesaggio Ligure" at the Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin; in 1947 he took part in a collective exhibition at the "Castore" Gallery in Palazzo Scaglia di Verrua. In 1951 he participated in the Turin Quadrennial with "Uscita da Messa". In 1960 he created an altarpiece in the parish church of Finale. In 1968 he held a personal exhibition at the "Le Tre Arti" Art Gallery in Noli. He also applied himself to frescoes, executing a very large one in the Cathedral of Noli, and others in various churches and palaces in Liguria. Two of his paintings were already royal property. Numerous posthumous exhibitions from 1979 to 1985 at the Fogliato gallery in Turin.
