On the occasion of this exhibition featuring a selection of Gino Forti's linocut works, we are republishing the article published on its disappearance in the monthly magazine Archivo in September 2009.

Gino Forti, one of the greatest Italian painters and engravers of his generation, passed away on the night of June 6, 2009, in Florence. Born in Novi di Modena in 1945, a favorite student of Alberto Manfredi at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, he was included in the renowned catalogs of the Libreria Prandi in Reggio Emilia from a very young age.

And in Reggio, with the Mavida publishing house, he created some of his most important illustrated books, from the linocuts for Agnolo Fiorenzuola's Three Stories of Animals to the series of engravings and lithographs for Anton Chekhov's Three Stories. These works were later exhibited at the major exhibition of artist's books from the Mingardi Collection, held in Parma: Allo Paris! The Artist's Book from Manet to Picasso. 

Gino Forti's printmaking remains one of the most authentic expressions of our time. Etchings, drypoints, linocuts, Forti mastered a variety of techniques with absolute mastery, linking them to recurring themes in his painting: men and women, children and animals, often intertwined, always as if caught in their everyday lives, in their gestures, or in their most familiar expressions. Perhaps no other printmaker, other than the great Luigi Bartolini, has been able to convey life in its most elemental concreteness, with almost total immersion, like Forti. Nor are his many depictions of a literary character like Pinocchio, to which Forti has continually returned in recent years, an exception in this sense; a Pinocchio more human than human, in keeping with the spirit of Collodi's book, certainly, but also and above all as an exemplary sentiment of an artist who has turned "naiveté," a constant wonder at life and its forms, into his great stylistic wisdom.

N. A. Manfredi, 2009

From December 15, 2025, to January 31, 2026, an exhibition of Gino Forti's oil paintings and engravings will be open to the public at the PRIMO STATO Cultural Association in Reggio Emilia, at Via Blasmatorti 1/G. This will offer a further opportunity to explore the expressive work of this artist friend of ours (for information Mr. LUIGI MARMIROLI, tel. 3356840308).

2026 will be the year dedicated to the completion of the edition of THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO, begun way back in 2000, with countless engravings and linocuts, many already signed by the artist, in 52 copies on Hahnemühle paper in large quarto, text in Garaldus font; and Anton Chekhov's fourth story, THE CHAMELEON, not included in the 1999 edition but with all the linocuts already printed in the layout and signed, in album format.