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As soon as I returned from the Tyrol
to Sicily I found out I was to be transferred to RAI's regional
television headquarters in Palermo. It seemed as if some mysterious
hand was gradually guiding me to the right places to find the
decisive contacts for the Rediscovery project. In Palermo it was to
prove far easier to have direct contact with the cultural
institutions involved in the project, to oversee the printing of the
catalogue and brochures and the production of the special packaging
needed for the travelling exhibition.
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The Rediscovery Catalogue |
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The front and back covers and the endpapers
of the Christian Hess Catalogue published for the Travelling
Exhibition of the Rediscovery by the Cassa di Risparmio per
le Province Siciliane.
(Stass Stampatori tipo-litografi associati. Palermo -
November 1974) |
Among the project's most fervent supporters in Palermo was Friederick
A. Schultz, director of the Goethe Institute, who was the first to give
back the name of Christian Hess to German culture when he presented my
monograph to the organisation's annual conference. So pursuasive was his
intervention that every Goethe Institute along the proposed route of the
travelling exhibition gave its support to the initiative.
Ferdinando
Stagno d’Alcontres, chairman of one of Sicily's
leading banks, was of invaluable help in the production of the catalogue,
of which Leonardo Sciascia wrote the preface noting certain affinities
between Hess and Guttuso. The regional councillor responsible for
tourism, Pasquale Macaluso, and the chairman of the Palermo and Monreale
Tourist Board, Paolo Bevilacqua, granted us use of the exhibition rooms
at the Palazzo del Turismo. Nor can I forget the enthusiastic
participation of the head of Sicily's Regional Assembly, Aldo Scimè; of
Enrico Vinci, the director-general of the European Parliament and of
Albino Longhi, the director of RAI's regional headquarters in Sicily.
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The
emblem of the Exhibition |
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The painting "The Fortune-teller" in
which Hess featured several typically Sicilian themes was
used to illustrate the invitation cards for the Rediscovery
Exhibition in Palermo on 26 November 1974 - 30 years to the
day after the artist's death.
The same painting was then used to publicise all 12 stages
of the travelling exhibition in cities in Italy, Austria and
Germany. |
I would also like to recall the affectionate cooperation of Renzo
Collura, the director of the Municipal Museum of Modern Art in Palermo,
who personally oversaw the setting up of the Rediscovery exhibition. He
was assisted by the painter Michele Spadaro who brought along and put on
display the easel that had belonged to Hess and which he had kept in his
Patti Marina studio since Emma had given it to him to look after in the
early 1950s.
There were 60 works on show - paintings, water-colours and drawings - at
the
exhibition in Palermo. Most of these had been left by Hess with his
sister Emma; others had been loaned by Italian collectors. In that
November of 1974 my concentration had reached its peak. I had completed
the layout and printing of the catalogue, but it was already time to
think of the packaging to be arranged for the travelling exhibition. Six
specially designed crates had to be built to measure for the works they
were to contain. Each crate would have photographs of their contents on
the inside of the opening. The idea was to make the packing and
unpacking of the works as easy and as swift as possible at each stage of
the exhibition.
It was also
necessary to prepare a handbook indicating the itinerary, how the works
were to be displayed at each location, plus all the details for
insurance purposes and the transporters. Here, too, my experience in the
planning and making of documentary films came in useful and I produced
two copies of a 16-page handbook using a publicity binder
(22.05x25.05cms) produced by a well-known Italian mineral water company.
You can look through the handbook by clicking here on the side.
The travelling exhibition was a huge success with the public. After
Palermo I personally attended the shows in Rome, Genoa, Florence and
Bolzano. I was accompanied on these stages by my brother-in-law who then
carried on alone as I was obliged to go to Rome to set up the opening of
news broadcasting on RAI's third radio channel. The exhibition was
greeted with extensive and favourable coverage in the press and in
cultural circles as well as on specialist arts programmes on television
and radio in Italy, Germany and Austria. Thanks to the kind cooperation
of the RAI film archives, it is possible to see many of the tv reports
on this website. All those who can still today admire Hess' work owe a
debt of gratitude to the artist's sister Emma who saved the paintings
from possible destruction in the war and continued to offer them a safe
home for many years afterwards in the hope that they would one day be
restored to the light of day following their long and bitter dispersion.
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Hess at the Palermo Rotary Club |
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 Palermo 14 November
1974 – During a gala dinner at “Villa Igiea”, the chairman
of Palermo Central Rotary Club, Prof. Giuseppe
Barbagallo-Sangiorgi, announces the Rediscovery of the works
by the German painter Christian Hess thanks to the efforts
of club member Domenico Maria Ardizzone and Aldo Scimè,
segretary- general of the Sicilian Regional Assembly and
Roberto Ciuni, editor-in-chief of "Il Giornale di Sicilia". |
I can still
recall the day when she told me I had in effect become her brother's
trustee and biographer - and entrusted me with all the documents,
letters, photographs, and press cuttings containing reviews of
exhibitions that were to form the basis of the historical archive which
is now looked after by the Christian Hess Cultural Association.
Without Emma's
vivid memories and her ardent desire to perpetuate her brother's memory
I doubt it would have been possible for anyone to reconstruct the human
and artistic journey of Christian Hess.
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