STORM ON LAKE MICHIGAN

This is the story of a box of negatives that remained stored in the attic of our family country house for about 30 years. It’s my grandfather Claudio negatives archive. I was named Claudio after him and this box was a present from my father for my birthday.

I never met my grandfather but I’ve heard about him since I was a child. He was a Sicilian politician and also worked as engineer of the Italian State Railways. He was also part of a family with a long history of jurists, politicians and scientists as my great uncle Ettore, mysteriously disappeared in 1938.

The box I received from my father contained around 100 rolls shot between 1940 and 1958. Later on I found more negatives and prints from his life. Each roll was wrapped in some paper where my grandfather wrote a date and the related events. The oldest negatives remained rolled up for about 70 years.

The first roll and prints I worked on are from a journey across United States during the winter of 1957. The reason of the journey was an invitation from the American State Department to keep relationships between American and Sicilian economy and finance. My grandfather was part of the delegation and the following pictures are some of the ones he took during that long journey.

And there he was, getting on the I - LUNA airplane directed to United States. Magazines were talking about it. My grandmother collected them all.

The American journey lasted about one month. After visiting New York City and Washington D.C. the delegation kept travelling through the Eastern side of United States. Many pictures are taken from the car like this one which my grandfather captioned on the back Storm on Lake Michigan, 1957.

Around the end of the trip a huge dinner was held by United Friends of Sicily association in honor of Hon. Giuseppe Alessi and his delegation at Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City. 
(Picture by Drucker-Hilbert Co. N.Y.)

It was March 10th 1957. I wonder who all these people are and how is everyone's story connected to Sicily. I never had a chance to get in contact with the United Friends of Sicily association. Maybe the only one alive I could speak to is that kid waving goodbye to the photographer. 

The pictures from the American journey are on Archivio Magazine #4, THE UNREAL ISSUE

THE REST OF THE ARCHIVE

I’m currently working on archiving the rest of the negatives, prints and also the Super 8 and 16mm film. Looking forward to share more of the world seen by his eyes.