What's New in the World: A Memory Artist

What the Paintings Reveal

It wasn't until he was separated from Pontito by time and distance that Franco began to paint. Through his painting, Franco began to create a special relationship with his past. In 1967, nine years after leaving Italy, Franco created the first Pontito canvas, the one of his home. His art quickly became the focus of his life. He says he would paint or draw a particular scene to bring back certain pleasant experiences of his childhood. Yet in talking with him I've come to see that, beneath the nostalgic surface, many of his remembered experiences were unhappy ones. For Franco, the paintings evoke both the positive and painful aspects of his past, that they are his way of reconnecting with one while gaining some perspective on, some control over, the other.

Oliver Sacks' comments on this unusual Magnani painting.

One of the few paintings in which Franco depicts people. The artist himself is shown playing on the steps; his mother appears inside the house.

Many of Franco's paintings begin with what he describes as a kind of memory flash, where a particular scene will suddenly come into his head. When he closes his eyes to picture a particular part of the town, he can scan the area and "see" in several directions. To do this, he must physically reorient his body, turning to the right to envision what would be to the right in the Pontito scene, to the left to "see" to that side.

Franco's visions are described.

It is striking that there are virtually no people in Franco's paintings. The images seem quiet and still. A painting in which people are moving about freezes a particular moment in the rush of time; Franco's views of the ancient town seem timeless, permanent. Franco says he likes to think of the town as his alone.

A Memory Artist