Giacomo Gandi

After studying briefly under Andrea Gastaldi at the Accademia Albertina in Turin, Giacomo Gandi continued his formation independently by making trips to Florence, Rome – where he settled around 1869 – and Parma.

He appears to have prided himself in never setting foot in the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, instead training with a painter by the surname Gigi.

[1] Moving to Savigliano after 1874, he specialised in genre painting and watercolour in which he executed two works for the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

The great success of his painting inspired by the life of the common people began to decline towards the end of the 19th century due to the changing tastes of collectors.

However, he continued unstintingly to practise his art, albeit in the narrow environment of Savigliano, until the last years of his life when he was prevented from doing so by an eye disease.