Fausto Bellino Tasca

Portraits

Fausto Tasca’s comprehensive training at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice included the study of portraiture. Tasca worked as a portrait artist in Rome prior to immigrating to the United States. None of his commissioned portraits from that period have been recovered by the Tasca family in the United States.

As an established artist in California, Tasca was frequently commissioned to paint portraits in oil. Among this work was a portrait of A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of America. It is shown below in a publicity photograph from the Los Angeles Times. Tasca also created a portrait of Galileo for the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles. Among other commissions were the portrait of President Roosevelt and that of J. David Larson.

A.P. Giannini
LA Times photograph
Archive of the Tasca Estate

Galileo, 1937
Oil on linen
Collection of Griffith Observatory

Griffith Observatory, 1938
Newsletter cover
Archive of Tasca Estate

LA Times article and photograph, 1937

Scientist and friend of the artist
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Tasca Estate

J. David Larson, 1929
Oil sketch for final portrait
Collection of the Tasca Estate

Young woman
Oil on canvas
Private Collection

Artist's son, 1925
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Tasca Estate

Self-portrait
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Tasca Estate

Antonio Urbani, 1924-1926
Oil on canvas
Collection of Anna Urbani Wilcoxson

During the years 1924–1926, while Fausto was working on the commission to paint Our Lady of the Rosary, he struck up a friendship with the Urbani family. An account of this unique and interesting relationship is described in Anna Urbani Wilcoxson's new book, Secrets and Promises, The Story of An Italian American Family.