Omar Galliani was born in 1954 at Montecchio Emilia, where he lives and works. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and winning the Faber Castell Prize at the International Triennial of Drawing in Nuremberg, his extraordinary international career began. In the 1980s, he took part in movements as Magico Primario and then Anachronismo reclaiming the great figurative tradition of Italian Renaissance.

He expresses his distinctive style mainly through painting and drawing and, in particular, using graphite and charcoal as preferred techniques; his favored subjects are intriguing portraits of female figures in which classicism and modernity come together to create timeless works characterized by an extreme aesthetic refinement, an extraordinary technical proficiency and meticulous attention to detail.

On several occasions his works were exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1982, 1984 and 1986), in São Paulo, Brazil, in Paris, in Tokyo (1980), at the Quadriennale in Rome (1986 and 1996). Furthermore, he participated to Prague Biennale (2003) and on two different occasions to Beijing Biennale (in 2003, when he won the First Prize, and in 2005). His works are present in the major galleries in Italy and abroad, winning numerous prizes and awards, as well as being included in the permanent collections of very important museums.

His interest in the theatrical dimension urged by his large-scale works, which actually transform the exhibition spaces in which they are placed, has led him to create numerous installations-artworks.

From 2018, one of his self-portraits is at the Uffizi Gallery of Self-Portraits and, more recently, the monographic exhibition at Palazzo Reale in Milan, entitled Omar Galliani. Diacronica – The Suspended Time is to be mentioned.

Furthermore, Omar Galliani has also been teaching at the Academies of Fine Arts in Urbino and Brera, Milan.

Omar Galliani will hold the masterclass Dal disegno all’installazione at the same time as the exhibition Un’Opera per Zeffirelli. The artist’s tribute installation to Franco Zeffirelli will be on display from Oct. 28 to Nov. 30 in the music hall of the Zeffirelli Foundation