Maria Teresa Vigano Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1886 - d. 1969

Maria Teresa Vigano was a painter. She was born in Milan, Italy in 1884. With her husband she came to Melbourne in 1928. In Australia they established Mario's Restaurant. In 1936 she held her first solo exhibition 'Thirty Years of Painting in Australia' in Rome. Vigano also held a solo exhibition at the Victorian Artists' Society rooms, Albert Street, East Melbourne, in 1965.

painter, was born in a castle in Villa Nuova, near Milan, daughter of a successful rice farmer. She studied art at Milan’s Brera Academy in 1909-10, adopting a late impressionist style and painting portraits and nudes. She also studied under Giovanni Sottocornola in Milan 1906-10. In 1911 she travelled to Canada where she was employed as a display artist at Eaton’s Store, Vancouver. There she met and married Mario Vigano. In 1919 they returned to Italy, but fled during the Mussolini Fascist regime after an attempt was made on Mario’s life. They reached Melbourne in January 1928, stripped of their Italian properties and most possessions, and spent years establishing themselves in the catering/restaurant business – years when Teresa had no time or opportunity to paint. She began painting again once the restaurant they established, called Mario’s, was flourishing, in spare moments between helping run the business and bringing up the three children. She took lessons from Arnold Shore and had a studio under the restaurant roof. One of her most successful portraits was of the ballet master Edouard Borovansky, who lunched daily at Mario’s. Mario’s prospered and the Viganos purchased a thirty-hectare farm at South Morang. This provided produce for the restaurant and a studio overlooking the Plenty River for Theresa, where she painted landscapes. Her favourite subjects now were landscapes, flowers and portraits painted in a semi-modernist, impressionist style that shares features with the work of William (Jock) Frater and her teacher and friend, Arnold Shore. In the 1950s ...