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Tea, Eva

    Full Name: Tea, Eva

    Gender: female

    Date Born: 29 July 1971

    Date Died: 1971

    Place Born: Biella, Piedmont, Italy

    Home Country/ies: Italy

    Subject Area(s): Medieval (European) and Modern (style or period)

    Institution(s): Università Cattolica di Milano


    Overview

    Professor of Medieval and Modern Art History. Tea was the daughter of a medical doctor and Anna Ricci, the director of the Asilo Umberto I in Vercelli. She was raised in Verona and graduated from University of Padua in 1911. She completed her graduate studies in art history in Rome in 1916 studying under Adolfo Venturi. Tea taught in Rome at a Liceo Classico and was an ispettrice di belle arti (Inspector of Fine Arts) in Ravenna as a Sovrintendenza ai Monumenti, and in Venice, Trento and Roman Forum. It was at the Roman Forum that she met Giacomo Boni. While he asked her to work as a secretary, they eventually conducted excavations together including that of the Basilica of Santa Maria Antiqua. She was then nominated to be a librarian in Milan at the Real Accademia di Belle Arti in Brera. In 1926, she enrolled in a free course at the Catholic University of Milan. She began working with Giuseppe Polvara (1884-1950) in 1929 to organize the Beato Angelico School. For many years, she worked with this avant-garde institution of artistic and political reform, however, when the school transformed into a religious institution subject to juridical conditions, she decided to focus on her students. The Scuola Beato Angelico eventually moved its headquarters to viale San Gimignano; she, however, remained at its old location and founded the Opera di assistenza agli artisti e alle modelle. Upon completion of the course at the Catholic University of Milan, she was first named to the department of Art Criticism and then to the department of Art History and Magisterium. Her most important contributions are found in the Arte Cristiana publications from 1927 to 1962. In 1964, she fractured her femur and her health slowly declined. She retired to live with her sister in 1967 and dying in 1971. She worked on the magazines Arte cristiana , Theatrica , and Vita e pensiero and the newspapers Corriere della Sera and Italia . Tea wrote the collection Quaderni dell’artista, and Umanesimo cristiano , Chiesa e impero nell’arte dei primi secoli Cristiani , Meditazioni su Giotto , and Paolo Veronese .


    Selected Bibliography

    • [complete bibliography:] Albricci, G. “Bibliografia di Eva Tea.” Arte Cristiana 65 (1977): 7-8;
    • Giacomo Boni nella vita del suo tempo. Milan: Casa editrice Ceschina, 1932;
    • La vita di Cristo. Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1960;
    • Medioevo. Storia Universale Dell’arte ; v. 3. Torino : Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1957;
    • Pitture e sculture nelle chiese di Milano . Milano: Banco ambrosiano, 1951;
    • Preistoria, Civiltà Extraeuropee . Storia Universale Dell’arte  v. 1. Turin: Unione tipografico-editrice torinese, 1953;
    • Quattrocento e Cinquecento. Storia Universale Dell’arte  v. 4. Turin Unione tipografico-editrice torinese, 1964;
    • and Banco Ambrosiano. Architetture e decorazioni nelle chiese di Milano: con 48 tavole fuori testo. (Milan: Officina d’Arti Grafiche E. Milli), 1952;
    • and Mino Borghi. Arte italiana: critica e storia. Milan: Libreria scientifica universitaria, 1941;

    Sources

    • Buti, a cura di Maria Bandini. Poetesse e Scrittrici. Enciclopedia Biografica e Bibliografica Italiana ; Ser. VI. Roma, E.B.B.I., Istituto editoriale italiano B.C. Tosi, 1942.
    • Melzi, Marco. “Eva Tea.” In Arte cristiana, 250–54, 1971;
    • Scano, Mario Gastaldi and Carmen. Dizionario Delle Scrittrici Italiane Contemporanee (Arte, Lettere, Scienze). Milan, 1961.


    Contributors: Denise Shkurovich


    Citation

    Denise Shkurovich. "Tea, Eva." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/teae/.


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