The U.S. Staff

Edmund Zimmerman

Edmund Zimmerman

Edmund Zimmerman, La Romita School’s on-site director, is likely to be the first smiling face you encounter as you first arrive for your art workshop experience. A free-lance writer and poet with a background in the performing arts in Rome and San Francisco, Edmund is fluent in Italian, has traveled extensively throughout Central Italy and is well versed in Italian cultural and political history. Edmund’s articles have been published in numerous print and on-line media. A book of his poems, Division Symbol, with illustrations by Enza Quargnali, was published in 2008 by Edizioni Thyrus.

Enza’s husband Ben Benson, a retired professor of architecture and city planning, is instrumental in keeping La Romita running smoothly as he oversees the many renovation projects on the church and monastery. Ben also oversees much of the financial planning, book-keeping, and administrative affairs.The vision behind La Romita School is artist and School president Enza Quargnali, B.A., M.F.A. Born and educated in Rome, Italy, Enza won a Fulbright for her MFA at the University of New Mexico. Enza founded La Romita School of Art in 1966 to realize her dream of using this historic convent, a family property since the late 1800s, to encourage cross-cultural exchange via the arts,

Founders: Enza Quargnali and Harold Benson

Founders: Enza Quargnali and Harold Benson

focusing specifically in Umbria, a region rich in medieval and early Renaissance artistic heritage. After years of collaboration with various United States universities to offer summers-abroad programs for fine arts and continuing education students, she and her sister Paola Quargnali, by then a member of the La Romita School team, expanded La Romita School to offer painting vacations and art holiday programs to “painting enthusiasts”– a term used here to encompass everyone from the passionate beginning painter, to the serious hobbyist, to the semi-professional and professional artist. La Romita maintains its expertise in all painting and fine-arts skill sets and still collaborates with universities, notably Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, to offer summer-abroad programs for young artists.

Tracy Posey works out of La Romita School’s Washington, DC office. Throughout the year, and especially when the rest of us are on-site in Italy, she is the soothing voice of La Romita, answering questions about La Romita’s art workshops in Italy on the phone and in emails.

With nearly twenty years experience in the visual arts as an arts administrator, arts advocate, curator, collector, creative consultant and organizer of cultural initiatives and design and art exhibitions, Tracy has successfully managed the administrative, financial and operational affairs of several leading non-profit, for profit, volunteer and artistic organizations.

An inveterate traveler, Tracy spent several years in Paris where she pursued cultural and artistic interests and synthesized a lifelong love of art and design. A patron of the arts and a member of several cultural organizations and museums on both sides of the Atlantic, Tracy is well-versed in the art community. She serves as a Volunteer Information Specialist at the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution, was a docent at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is a constant on the national and international contemporary art scenes.

Most recently, Tracy was director of a prominent upscale gallery in the trendy Dupont Circle area of Washington and was previously the Administrator of the DC Chapter of ArtTable, an organization for prominent women leaders in the visual arts.

 

Amina Quargnali-Diehl

Amina

Amina Quargnali-Diehl is the Website Editor and also Editor of La Romita’s monthly newsletter – Notes from La Romita.  She currently lives in  La Paz, Bolivia with her husband, David Diehl, son Cameron, and daughter Gabriella.They will move to Whitefish, Montana summer 2020

Alessandro Quargnali-Linsley  is the Internet Technology Director for La Romita School of Art. Alessandro lives in Chicago, with his wife Joanna and their daughter Daniella.

Alessandro Quargnali-Linsley

Alessandro

Alessandro and Amina are the children of co-founder Paola Quargnali.

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