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Gemma Fane Taccogna (1923–2007) was an Italian-born American and Mexican visual artist and educator. She was known for her work in papier-mâché and ceramics, and as well as in painting."Looking to PV for Retirement, Italian-born artist finds new career instead". The Los Angeles Times. November 19, 1982. pgs. 190, 193, 195. – via Newspapers.com. Her artwork became collector's items starting in the 1960s. She lived in Mexico City, Palos Verdes Estates, California, and Torrance, California for many years. Taccogna also went by the names Gemma Walker, Gemma Del Rio, and Gemma Sexton.
Taccogna attended Cooper Union, and the Art Students League of New York. She studied under Marc Chagall, Eric Fromm, and William Zorach.
Taccogna worked as the director of the Mount Vernon Art Center in Mount Vernon, New York. She was active in showing her work at the Mount Vernon Art Association, from the late 1940s until the early 1950s. In 1949, her painting "Springtime Still Life" won first place at the Mount Vernon Art Association.
When Taccogna arrived in Mexico in 1954, she already was a well-known artist in New York City. In the San Ángel neighborhood of Mexico City, she set up a studio to make papier-mache artworks. Her work was covered in Verna Cook's book Mexican Interiors, with photographs by Bob Schalkwijk. The studio, named Artes Gemma, had up to 60 employees. Peggy Guggenheim bought Gemma's art and exhibited it in her museum in Venice. Gemma's success gave the papier-mâché industry in Mexico a boost.
For the next decade she lived in various places in the United States, including Las Vegas, Long Beach, and Del Mar. Taccogna moved to a condo in Torrance, California in 1994, and she continued teaching art classes until her death.
Collectors of Taccogna's work included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Mary Tyler Moore, Burt Lancaster, and Anna Sui.
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