Toti Scialoja

Toti Scialoja (Roma, 16 December 1914 - Roma, 1 March 1998) was an Italian painter and poet. After an expressionist period, he oriented himself towards an abstract-concrete pictorial language with a strong material charge. An important part of his activity has been dedicated to theatre, for which he has collaborated with writers, musicians, directors and avant-garde choreographers. From 1961 he began an original activity as a poet, dedicated in part to children, creating nonsense and limerick and illustrating his own poems. He was professor and director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he had as students many contemporary artists, such as Mario Ceroli, Pino Pascali and Jannis Kounellis, who often remembered him as an important inspirer of their artistic path.