- Ernesto Michahelles Thajat Biography
Ernesto Michahelles, known by the pseudonym Thayaht, was an artist and designer born in Florence on 21 August 1893. In 1915, after a short stay in Paris, he exhibited a series of abstract drawings in Florence, coming into contact with the Florentine futurists. Thayaht was an eclectic artist who worked in painting, sculpture, fashion, theatre, decorative arts, advertising graphics, photography and interior design. In 1918 he moved again to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie Ranson and frequented avant-garde circles. Here, he began working as a stylist together with Madeleine Vionnet and created original models inspired by the "deco" style. In 1919, upon returning to Florence, Thayaht invented and spread with unexpected success the "t"-shaped work "overall", made from a single piece of fabric. This garment was created for the masses, but was initially adopted by snobbish Florentine circles. Thayaht also tried his hand at goldsmithing, inventing "taiattite", an alloy of silver and aluminum with which he created primitive-style jewellery. In 1929, the meeting with Marinetti and participation in the "Thirty-three Futurists" exhibition at the Pesaro Gallery in Milan favored his rise in the art world. His passion for parascientific and astronomical studies led him to found CIRNOS (Independent Space Observation News Collection Center) in 1954 with the aim of identifying and demonstrating the existence of UFOs. The center was based in his home in Marina di Pietrasanta, where Thayaht died on 29 April 1959.
