Last night, 6 May 2019, Umberto Buscioni passed away.

I took this photo of Umberto Buscioni a few years ago, along with other portraits. When I first met him, he was already getting older but unlike some artists his age he wasn't used to "pontificate". I was struck by his sensitivity, his sweetness. He was a reserved, kind man. Some time later, he happened to me, with great pleasure, to take some shots of him which I know he liked a lot and which he reused on various occasions. I understood immediately, attending his studio, that I was dealing with a free artist. I remember being struck by the fact that human beings almost never appear in his works, except in the fleeting details of hands appearing here and there. Actually it was the wind that seemed to me to be the true protagonist of his works. A silent and gentle wind which is the element that reveals life by inflating his shirts, ruffling his ties. The ground, on the other hand, seemed to me to be neutral ground whose function is to accommodate the only objects (sneakers, motorcycles, etc.) that express, albeit indirectly, humanity. Observing the large canvases kept in his studio was like traveling through time, through the changing of his art... gradually shadows appeared that were far from the colours pastel of the sixties and also the objects already treated years before he, then, began to paint them with more reflective, more intimate shades.

When he spoke of his work, Buscioni was able to enchant me with his usual grace and with his delicacy.

I thought our souls were "consonant"... and I know they will continue to play together even now... so I want to try not to be too sad today...

a warm arrivederci to a dear friend...

From 1980 to 1998 he held the Chair of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. Some of his exhibitions have taken place in Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, in New York, Museum of Modern Art, in Spoleto, Palazzo Racani-Arroni, in Florence, Palazzo Pitti. In 1992 he published, for Passigli Editore, Glossario, with a preface by Mario Luzi.

From the second half of the eighties he was the author of numerous artistic stained glass windows and in 2012 he completed the cycle of single lancet windows for the Church of San Paolo in Pistoia.

On 1 December 2018, his exhibition "The secret soul of things" was inaugurated at Palazzo Fabroni in Pistoia.