Basilicata, Southern Italy: A Place of Mystery, Magic and Secrets

Looking across Italy's Wild West, the rugged mountains of Basilicata with deep, austere ravines that are covered in a carpet of broom and violets in spring

Basilicata is one of the most dramatic yet least known regions of Southern Italy. From tiny, hilltop villages where you can listen to poetry while looking at the moon, to Francis Ford Coppola's beautiful hotel that draws actors and directors from around the world along with the Lucania Film Festival, this place is full of magic and secrets. Story & photographs by Mariangela Curci 

Glowing lamps at twilight on the terrace at Pisticci 

LIKE a great impressionist painting, Basilicata touches you with the mutable colours and subtle palette of its mountainous landscape, full of sinuous poetry and stark beauty. It is one of the smallest regions in the country ~ called the secret garden of Italy. Basilicata is a land rich in surprises from the coast to the wild mountains and from wide open parks to historical palaces.

The little villages up in the hills are intact and untouched as if time has stayed still, populated by simple, welcoming people who make any stay here quite unforgettable. But Lucania, the old name of the region, is not as isolated as it seems. Many artists, film directors, poets and composers have stayed here and been inspired, offering homage to this ruggedly beautiful region.



The ancient city of Matera looks to the future

Indeed in Basilicata, we find not only the third oldest city in the world with 10,000 years of history but also a place filled with innovative ideas. Matera, the ancient city of caves, will host the European Capital of Culture 2019, and today is known as an avant-guard incubator of artistic projects.

Late afternoon summer espresso in Bernalda 

Francis Ford Coppola, one of world's great film makers, is not only originally from Basilicata but is very proud of it. In Bernalda, the original town where his grand-father Agostino came from, Coppola has created a little paradise at the Palazzo Margherita, a hotel that hosts actors and directors who want to discover a real and authentic Italy.


Rivello lost in a deep and mysterious landscape

Lucania is an unusual place, where you can experience and live a unique way of life, far from everyday cares, and feel like you are in a film. You arrive in Basilicata on the old railway line with a train with just two carriages that leaves platform Nine and Three-Quarters like the express for Hogwarts. As the train trundles through the mountains, you look out and become immersed in the silence of a deep and mysterious country.


After the summer siesta in Pisticci 

Quotidian stress doesn't exist here, Lucania offers a spiritual aspect that welcomes visitors and soothes all of the senses. Your encounters with the places, tastes and people of the region always seem to be casual and authentic, things happen spontaneously. Here, it is enough to simply relax and let yourself be transported by the atmosphere of another, rather magical world.
In Satirano, during one day of the year at Carnival time, the men of this village dress themselves as trees and the surrounding forest appears to walk. In Lucania, you meet fortune tellers, musicians, and magicians. During the magic summer of Albano, you can still see traps set out to capture witches and symbolic fires lit to burn them, traditions that go back to medieval times.


The sun-baked main piazza of Salandra

Even more mysterious is Craco, a city of ghosts, that is completely uninhabited and abandoned between deep valleys and an arid earth. Every spring the calanchi or clay gullies around Matera blossom with broom flowers and wild violets, blooming across the sun-baked earth. This extraordinary landscape, unique in Italy, is where the population density is so low that you can roam for hours without meeting a soul.


Or you can leave the wilderness and go to the festival of Aliano, where you are able to listen to poetry while you stare at the moon or relax during the projection of a film on the terrace at Pisticci, the white city, where actors and directors gather during the Lucania Film Festival.

Poetry and films under the stars at Pisticci 

In all of these small towns, there is a cordiality on the smiling and curious faces of the people sitting on the benches in the main piazzas. It's impossible to not want to take at least one photograph of their sympathetic faces and bring them with you as memories of your voyage.
Pictured below is the Cinecitta Bar that overlooks the main square of Bernalda, designed by Sofia Coppola as a homely place for a good espresso and a pizza, while you watch the townspeople go by. It is at the front of the Coppola's 19th Century Palazzo Margherita which they renovated and restored with French architect Jaques Grange as a luxurious boutique hotel with a film screening room, beautiful frescoed salons and lush, leafy gardens and fountains. 

Francis Ford Coppola's Cinecitta Bar in Bernalda

Every village in Basilicata is different and enriched by it's own particular quirks. People tell different stories of their experiences, recounting the peculiarities of each place in their own way. Basilicata is like a small, secret world lost in time but looking out toward the future.

Translated from the Italian by Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Interview with David Adams: Filmmaker and Photojournalist

 David Adams riding across the plains during filming in Afghanistan of his enthralling documentary series "Alexander's Lost World."

Australian filmmaker and photojournalist David Adam’s exciting television series Alexander’s Lost World is broadcast on networks around the world. Jeanne-Marie Cilento interviewed the inveterate traveller about his adventures at his beautiful mud-brick home overlooking the Bilgola Plateau in Sydney

DAVID Adams and his cameraman travelled through the most remote regions of Afghanistan over a period of five years researching and filming the documentary series Alexander's Lost World. They travelled and lived like Afghans gaining a profound insight into the people and their culture. 

During the engaging six part series, David Adams takes viewers on a dramatic 2,400 kilometre journey through war-torn Afghanistan and Central Asia, following the course of the Oxus River. While the Ancient Greeks have long been credited for bringing ‘civilization’ to the East, Adams’ series shows how Alexander the Great discovered a highly developed civilisation that predated even the Persians. He explores the mysteries of the Oxus Civilisations and their tremendous fortress cities, recreated with evocative visual effects that make you feel like you are actually there amid the great walls of these ancient bastions.

As a filmmaker and photojournalist, David Adams is well known for his investigative work, particularly focused on indigenous peoples and their disappearing cultures. He has written, directed and produced many documentary films over the past 20 years, including Journeys to the Ends of the Earth, a 13-part documentary series made for the Discovery network.

Adams' passion for archaeology, anthropology and history has taken him around the world from Iran, Siberia and central Asia to the Pacific Rim, Northern and Central Africa. As a widely published photojournalist, his articles have appeared in more than 50 different countries and he has been a war correspondent reporting from Afghanistan and Georgia.
 

For more information about David Adam's work and Alexander's Lost World visit: davidadamsfilms.com.au.

Fashion and the Future: Interview with Sacha Walckhoff

"It is a difficult moment to talk about fashion in Europe because it is very frivolous. But I believe you can still say a lot through fashion. I think there is the possibility to express something really interesting", says Sacha Walckhoff, photographed in Paris by Elodie Dupuis.

On the eve of his menswear spring/summer 2016 collection arriving at Christian Lacroix next month, the house's Creative Director Sacha Walckhoff talks to Jeanne-Marie Cilento from his Paris atelier about fashion, creativity and the future. SS16 photographs by CG Watkins 

TALL and handsome with an infectious laugh, Christian Lacroix's creative director Sacha Walckhoff brings his ebullient artistic energy to the house's menswear and lifestyle collections. After the eponymous couturier left the house five years ago, Mr Walckhoff has brought a fresh vision to the French brand. He worked closely with Christian Lacroix for 17 years so has a profound understanding of the house's artistic origins.

Sacha Walckhoff & Christian Lacroix during the glory years

Speaking from his Parisian studio, he says: “Today's collections are also very close to Christian Lacroix the man, even if we are not working together anymore. I'm still faithful to the spirit, the origin of the house. People associate Lacroix with very colourful prints. But I think there is another level of the brand which is about an artistic vision.” As a designer, Sacha Walckhoff works on many different projects for both fashion and interior design and brings a very passionate approach to his own creations. “I think everything in life is about what you feel, so feelings for me are very potent,” he says. “They are the foundation of the Lacroix brand too ~ it is all about creating emotions first. Then of course there are colours and prints. But the reason why the house is still alive is because it is built on feelings. I think that is why so many people are attached to Christian Lacroix.”


Dark flowers SS16. Photo: CG Watkins

He says the ideas behind the men's SS16 collections and Nouveaux Mondes home ware are contemporary yet still connected to the history of Lacroix. “I want to express tolerance and being open minded, this is what society should be. But it is very important for me to have an eye on the past and know where you are coming from. You have to know your past to go into the future. This is the theme of the collections this year. We still use the symbols of Lacroix, like flowers which could be quite traditional such as roses and peonies. But we put stripes on them and create a graphic statement and suddenly the flowers seem very modern.

"At Lacroix we have a story and yet we find a way to make it relevant. In the beginning, when I was appointed artistic director five years ago we went through the archives but I didn't want to change the designs otherwise people wouldn't recognise them. But we also realised very quickly that the things we took from the archives were not successful ~ because they were made at a special moment and now the times have changed."


Urban hubris SS16. Photo: CG Watkins

Looking at fashion on the streets, Sacha Walckhoff sees it as increasingly casual. "The problem with casual is that it is not very elegant ~ a very French statement! But you know in Paris in the 14th and 15th arrondissments, I see guys with beautiful suits and girls wearing beautiful dresses, jackets and hats. So the street style can look very good. But today people are lot fatter now than in the past and this is related to why they choose more casual wear."
As far as current trends in fashion, he still sees a slender aesthetic."People are wearing very slim lines, slim outfits and slim trousers, the young generation are still very body conscious."

The men who buy from the Christian Lacroix boutique in Paris are a heterogeneous group of artists, architects and lawyers from 25 years old upwards. "They are looking for something amusing with a good cut and good print with exquisite designs and fabrics. We are close to our clients. I am always trying to make the perfect shirts and suits. Pieces that you are happy to wear every day and then find them again in the next collection.When men find what they love, the right cut of pants or shirt ~ they don't want us to stop!"

Nature rules in the Paris suburbs. Photo: CG Watkins

Today, the fashion world has changed as luxury brands have some of their biggest clientele in Asia not Europe: "They were starving for fashion because of the political situations in their countries. I think what they are going through now is what we went through in the 1960s and 70s. Europeans are not our largest clients anymore. We have other situations that are very difficult here: people are too busy fighting for work, for places to live, really struggling. It is a difficult moment to talk about fashion in Europe because it is very frivolous. But I believe you can still say a lot through fashion. I think you have the possibility to express something interesting and the more that is expressed the better."

But the designer comments that he is surprised that many young designers are not expressing themselves as creatively as in the past with what they wear and design for themselves. "Today, when you look at men's collections that are very trendy, colourful and full of strange shapes ~ it is made for people to talk about and not to be worn. In the 1980s, we were making strange clothing but we were wearing it. We wanted to have originality and if you couldn't find what you wanted we made our own clothing. But now it is different as all of those young guys who are designing crazy outfits don't wear them. They are still wearing jeans and t-shirts as the designer and coming out on to the runway. It is very bizarre to me! It is like they are presenting clothes that they don't want to wear themselves.


Sacha Walckhoff as a young designer in Paris

"We were designing clothes and wearing them because we wanted to really express ourselves. I think fashion is becoming just an image ~ it is not real any more. Truly it is a feeling I have right now that people do not wear what they are designing. We need people who are a bit crazy and creative not only for the runway but also in real life." Mr Walckhoff  has an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion and can explain the history and provenance of a new jacket going back to influences from the Renaissance to David Bowie. But he thinks that the way new designers often just take ideas from the past directly without creating something new is very dull. "I don't think inspiration should be so literal as it is today ~ you need to transform it. I know the history of every piece of fashion. This is why at Lacroix I am always reworking designs from the past ~ but it never looks like the original. This is what is interesting in our world. I think it is a bit boring when you just take something and you reissue it. It is not something I would like to do."

Talking about the power of the fashion image today the designer believes it is more difficult to make an impact because we have visual overload. "We are bombarded by images today with the Internet and social media. It is difficult because you have to edit them all of the time. I am a bit afraid of being insensible to images in the future because there are just too many to filter through your mind. Even when you wake-up there are so many images to digest ~ even before having your coffee." Mr Walkhoff is also concerned

Colour & embroidery SS16. Photo: CG Watkins

about the increasing mechanisation of everyday life that makes us more distant from hand-crafted designs and nature.

"I was talking to [Dutch designer] Marcel Wanders, we were saying the machines will take over ~ they don't need food or rest ~ and one day there will be robots on the runway and robots making the collections and robots buying the clothes. We will be left at our country houses out of it all!" he says laughing. "With the new menswear collection, maybe it is about the fact that in an increasingly mechanised world nature is still much stronger than anything man can create. Maybe it is something unconscious trying to say that nature will always win ~ that is really the theme of this menswear collection."

Working with designer Jose Gandia, head of Lacroix's Studio Homme, on the collection, Sacha Walckhoff wanted to design classic clothes with a young and modern twist. There are very well cut suits in beautiful fabrics with linings made out of silk as well as prints and embroideries. All of the sweaters are from cotton so they are very breathable with others in Jacquard with embroidery. "The house is known for its mix and match, combining different things like prints, flowers, bright colours such as fuschia that in the end really work," says Mr Gandia. "This season we found the colours of Paris suburbs interesting, you feel like you could almost be in LA. It was very nice to shoot there."


Industrial Paris SS16. Photo: CG Watkins

For the collection's photo shoot, nature and the city were big inspirations. Mr Walckoff worked with photographer CG Watkins to shoot the pictures in the suburbs of Paris. “Nature is always stronger than man-made cities ~ here in the Parisian suburbs even though the plants grow in small spaces and on balconies ~ there is still a spirit of wildness. So we wanted to have the pictures taken in places which were quite built up but at the same time nature still managed to grow there." The photographer, who grew up in Australia, was very attracted to the idea of going to the outer suburbs in Paris to shoot. "It was really interesting and it was so busy ~ I didn't think the suburbs were so busy," Sacha Walckhoff says. "We went to a squat and saw this whole universe of people who are free and living with a certain wildness. They are constructing a new way of life. In some ways, it is a spirit that for me is quite close to what Lacroix is all about.The collection is based on both human nature and the wilderness which is coming out in the cities ~ despite the concrete."

Mr Walckhoff say the menswear collection expresses his vision of Lacroix. "Collaborating with CG Watkins who is British but raised in Australia we talked a lot about the dessert. You can feel it in all of his images. It is always good to have a link with the young photographers and the young magazines because it is the kind of customer we want to share the collection with. We have a lot of customers who are faithful to the brand. But it is also important to be connected to the young generation ~ it is a great way to do it working with young photographers."


Christian Lacroix's Nouveaux Mondes collection

The first collection of Christian Lacroix lifestyle was created in 2011. Mr Walckhoff is now responsible for overseeing the design of the menswear collections, eye wear, sunglasses lines, scarves and leather goods collections as well as home décor. The lifestyle and home wares collections have been very successful along with the menswear, but the creative director doesn't rule out a return to designing women's fashion again in the future.

Sacha Walckhoff has a special way of working artistically with his team at Lacroix. Designer Jose Gandia says: "It is a real pleasure working with Sacha as each season I discover something fresh as he presents a new book, a new artist for our inspiration. We share ideas then we work out what we want. We talk about the exhibitions we have seen and how that inspires us."

As artistic director, Sacha Walckhoff makes a presentation to his team twice a year and then the other designers have an input for specific collections. "Sometimes they propose things that make the designs richer," he says. "I like to have a creative dialogue with my colleagues when I am working ~ I feed them but they also need to feed me. I need interaction, this is my way of working. If I don't like something I just say it. But I love it when an idea comes from the studio and makes the concept deeper and more interesting. I welcome new ideas while keeping the vision of Christian Lacroix."

Robert De Niro: Remembering his Father the Artist

American actor Robert De Niro talking about his artist father: "You never know. His art could last longer than my films." Portrait by Hedi Slimane. Click on photographs for slide show.

Robert De Niro has produced a documentary about his artist father's life and work during the celebrated 1940s and 50s New York School. The American actor visited Rome for its European premiere and to talk about his relationship with Robert De Niro Senior and his oeuvre, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

ROBERT De Niro’s rugged face crinkles into a smile when he is talking about his father’s paintings but tears well up when he speaks of him as a man. The actor is quiet and thoughtful in person, even delicate, without a hint of the robust and menacing characters he has famously played on screen. He talks knowledgeably about the post-war art scene in New York and how his father's figurative expressionist work, inspired by European Modernism, at first flourished but was then eclipsed by Abstract Expressionism and later Pop Art in the 1960s.

Woman in Red 1961

The actor says for years he wanted to make a film to record his father's work and life and use the Super 8 footage from the 1970s recording De Niro Sr's art world: “I wanted to put it to use in a documentary. I wanted to interview his contemporaries while people are still around." Launched at the the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro, Sr, was directed by Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir and produced with HBO Documentary Films.Looking at the faces of the two men together it is striking that De Niro looks direct and determined while his father’s expression is softer, more undecided and uncertain about life. And Robert De Niro Sr did struggle with his personal identity and success as an artist.

Robert De Niro Sr & son in New York:

"We had a strong connection."

De Niro says he didn't have a traditional elationship with his father: "We were not the type of father and son who played baseball together, as you can surmise. But we had a strong connection."

Robert De Niro’s on screen characters from Vito Corleone in The Godfather:Part II and Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver to Jake La Motta in Raging Bull and Pat Solatano in Silver Linings Playbook — have earned the actor two Oscars and his reputation as one of the best actors in the world. Yet after making 100 films over five decades, this documentary offers more insight into what moves De Niro himself.

Today, he still keep his father’s studio exactly as he left it in New York’s Soho when he passed away in 1993 at the age of 71 years old. The studio is located in a nondescript building, up six flights of stairs and contains two big spaces. One is covered in shelves containing art books and writers such as Appollinaire, Ibsen, Valery, Proust and O’Neill. The other room has painting easels, tubes of paint and palettes and the walls are covered in his drawings and paintings.

Robert De Niro Sr painting

at his beloved Soho studio in New York

"I like things that don’t change. I like consistency," De Niro says, explaining the decision to leave the valuable real estate in SoHo as it was. “My mother lived here, and then she moved to another studio and gave this to my father. He was here at least 15 years. I changed a couple of things, but it’s about 90 percent the way it was. I preserved it mainly for my kids, especially my younger kids, because I wanted them to be able to see what their grandfather did and how he worked.”

Robert De Niro Sr was born in 1922 in Syracuse, New York to an Italian American father, Henry Martin De Niro whose parents emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise, and an Irish American mother, Helen O'Reilly.

Already showing artistic ability as a child, De Niro Sr began attending art classes at the Syracuse Museum from age eleven to fifteen. In the summer of 1938, he studied with the artist Ralph Pearson in Gloucester Massachusetts. Later he was a student of two of the 20th century’s leading abstract painters, Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann. 



Henri Matisse was a life-long 

inspiration for the artist

In 1939, he won a scholarship to Black Mountain College in North Carolina. A decade later he studied with Hans Hofmann’s Eighth Street school in New York. De Niro met his wife there, fellow painter Virginia Admiral, and they were part of  an artistic circle in Greenwich Village that included Anaís Nin, Henry Miller, Robert Duncan and Tennessee Williams.

In 1943, when his father was 21 years old, Robert Jr was born but his young parents continued to study and paint and summer in Provincetown. Virginia and Robert only stayed togther until he was three years old but the actor says they were always on friendly terms.

De Niro's exceptional training helped to launch his career, highlights included his solo debut in Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in 1946, regular shows alongside de Kooning, Rothko and Kline at the Charles Egan Gallery in the 50s  and later at Virginia Zabriskie's gallery. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1968 and he held exhibitions of his work throughout his life. Unlike many of his better-known peers, De Niro never totally abandoned the high-art tradition: nudes, still lifes, and idyllic landscapes were his preferred subjects.

Three Women 1968

He mixed abstraction and representation, bridging the gap between European modernism and Abstract Expressionism, inspired by painters from Delacroix to Matisse. With his wide knowledge of art history, he sought to maintain the tradition of representational painting, eschewing the tide of abstraction that was championed by many of his contemporaries. He followed his own vision of painterliness and experimentation.

By this time, De Niro had arrived at his distinctive mode of painting, which he continued to explore and develop for the next forty years. His works from these decades are expressionistic and show his signature post-Fauve palette with freely brushed areas of colour defined by strong outlines.

Critic and editor-in-chief of Artnews, Thomas Hess wrote in February 1951: “De Niro succeeds in keeping every inch of the canvas alive...The result is a feeling of luxury, poise and affable richness, combined with a sort of nervous impetuosity." 

Still life with Vase, Lemons and Guitar  1989

Robert De Niro Jr. regrets not being more interested in art when he was younger, but he was attracted to acting from an early age. “My parents were supportive,” he says, “but they didn’t push me in any way. Nonetheless, they would have preferred my being an actor as opposed to, say, an insurance salesman.”

Artist Paul Resika, a longtime friend of De Niro Sr, recalls the late painter as truly standing out in a “rarified world” of Hofmann students aiming to upend the art establishment. De Niro was a “superior painter,” says Resika, “In New York in the ’50s he was the equal to Kline, Rothko, and De Kooning.” But Resika says De Niro was also “very poor. He taught art, as many of us did, to pay the rent. His wife helped him; she’d gone into real estate and bought property in SoHo.”

The documentary film, directed by Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir, offers a moving account of the 22-year-old De Niro going to Paris in 1965 after his father had moved there to help him sell his work, since De Niro Sr. was struggling to make ends meet. “I felt responsible. I was his son; his only child,” says De Niro Jr today. “I saw he was in a rut over there; it wasn’t going well and he was unhappy, so I made him come back.” 

 Once the actor had achieved fame by the mid-1970s, he was able to help his father financially. Yet, when asked if his father had a favourite of his many now classic films, De Niro can’t recall a conversation about his career: “He was proud of me, of course, but we never had any discussions about it. He was supportive. I’d always invite him to film openings with my grandmother, his mother, and I would go to openings of his shows.” During the documentary, De Niro reads from his father's diaries: "I feel I hardly have the courage at this moment to wash my brushes, which have been standing in turpentine....The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next.” 

 

As a successful actor Robert De Niro Jr
 could help his father

The film's director, Perri Peltz says the documentary not only reflects the artist's career, but also tackles the most intimate aspects of De Niro Sr's life through his personal letters and diaries, unpublished family pictures and interviews with the artist, his friends and art experts. Peltz pointed out that the film seeks to shed light on both his artistic and human qualities. 
De Niro says that the movie tackles his father's unspoken homosexuality, which was the cause of internal conflict while he was alive. The actor added that he couldn't discern his father's sexual orientation, but realised the truth later thanks to some subtle references his mother used to make. This subject was always considered a taboo, and was never discussed between him and his father.

In 2011, De Niro Jr established an award of $25,000 USD to be given annually to artists under the auspices of the Tribeca Film Institute. The Robert De Niro Sr Prize focuses on mid-career American artists pursuing excellence and innovation in painting and draws attention to artists whose work has been under-recognised by the art world. Catherine Murphy won this year while Stanley Whitney was awarded in 2012 and Joyce Pensato last year.

The actor says he felt his father never received the attention he was due during his life and the documentary was a way to preserve his legacy. "My father was successful in his life, as he did what he pleased and liked; he gained international recognition, but not the level he deserved. You never know. His art could last longer than my films." 

The actor at a recent exhibition
of his father's paintings this year

Robert De Niro Sr., Paintings and Drawings (1948–1989) was exhibited at DC Moore Gallery this July and prices at the show ranged from $14,000 USD for charcoal drawings to $250,000 USD for the largest paintings.

Today, Robert De Niro Sr is represented in many museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2009, a retrospective of his work was presented at the Musée Matisse in Nice, France. 

Watch the trailer for the documentary here:

“My parents were supportive but they didn’t push me in any way. Nonetheless, they would have preferred my being an actor as opposed to, say, an insurance salesman," says De Niro Jr today.







Still Life with Vase of Flowers, Lemons, Chair and Guitar 1989 Oil on linen, 34 x 40 inches

Detail of  Still Life with Greek Head, 1951 Oil on canvas.

Woman in Red, 1961 Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Estate of Robert De Niro Sr

Three Women 1968 Oil on canvas 72 x 78 inches.Courtesy of the estate of Robert De Niro Sr

Reclining Figure Reading a Book 1970 Charcoal on paper, 19 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches 

Moroccan Women, 1984. Oil on canvas.  Courtesy of the Estate of Robert De Niro Sr

Autumn Landscape with House 1968 Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

Detail of Studio Interior, 1969. Oil on canvas

Detail of  Last Painting 1992. Oil on linen.

Flowers in a Blue Vase 1966 Oil on canvas

Still Life with Two Vases and Pitcher, No Date. Watercolor on paper, 18 x 24 inch caption

Robert De Niro Sr mixed abstraction and representation, bridging the gap between European modernism and Abstract Expressionism, inspired by painters from Delacroix to Matisse. 

Early etching by Robert De Niro Sr



Fashion Report From the Catwalks: Sping Summer 2016 Trends

Bold colours and prints with a seventies vibe dominated the catwalks, as at Christopher Kane's SS16 show in London above. Photo by Shaun James Cox, British Fashion Council

As the Spring/Summer 2016 fashion season comes to a close, we take a look back at the highlights and trends from the catwalks with a special focus on London Fashion Week, renowned for being more experimental and free spirited than New York, Milan and Paris, our Fashion Editor Limor Helfgott makes a special report 

1970s at Preen. Photo: Kensington Leverne

This year, the new location for London Fashion Week in Soho had a slightly grungier feeling to it and the collections by local designers seemed to connect to the city’s fashion scene with cool, colourful and energetic designs. Bold colours and prints were key elements and the 1970’s fever was at an all-time high. A feminine mood was very noticeable this season and replaced the androgynous trend that dominated the collections last season.
Frills, thrills and feminine silhouettes

Frills, futurism & vibrant colour at Fyodor Golan

Fyodor Golan's women were as usual, fragile but at the same time fearless and seductive. The duo presented a collection inspired by futurism and collaborated with Transformers to create looks that were full of frills, vibrant colours and floral designs. Completing the looks perfectly were stacked wooden platforms by Kat Maconie that together created a sporty Geisha in geometric prints and floral printed patent leathers with neon detailing.

Danielle Romeril's sleeves. Photo: Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Ruffles were seen almost everywhere and were styled in many different ways, while glitter was also part of the fun. A good example was on the Ashish runway which was filled with colourful glitter over the white flounces. Models were presented as skater princess fairies in sheer maxi dresses and tracksuits covered in sparkles and patches.


Double ruffles at David Koma. Photo: Kensington Levernel 

It was double ruffles at the David Koma collection, the master of flaunting the female form. In his SS16 collection, he presented layering, but not in the traditional sense, and tops and trousers were corseted or bound tightly at the waist to create the most feminine look.

Toga's mysteries: Alessandro Garofola

On the Toga catwalk models meandered through flowering trees. The theme of the collection “Petals, Minerals, Squiggles” was meant to evoke the mystery of nature. Large ruffles and frills were presented alongside pleated tulle and arty prints with feminine flowing skirts. The materials were collated and bonded like seaweed on the shore, and the embroidered and printed tulle was a reminiscent of the ethereal floating colours of jellyfish. Another element we couldn’t ignore was the attention sleeves received on the catwalks, from modern asymmetric arms as seen at Roksanda and Jonathan Saunders to Victorian motifs at Erdem, flowing sleeves at JW Anderson or long fluted designs at the Danielle Romeril presentation ~ certainly a key look on the catwalk this season.

Khaki at Christopher Raeburn. Photo: Sam Wilson

New season colours: yellow and green
Side by side with pastels, blue and nude, it looks like green and yellow dominated the catwalks this season and seemed to be the hottest shades. At Christopher Raeburn we could definitely spot a sea of green and olives in forms of multiple military-inspired ensembles, together with kimono wraps in yellow, blue and white. This collection didn’t join the feminine celebration on the London fashion week catwalks, and was more on the tomboy side. Bora Aksu’s collection was inspired by memories of the lush garden full of lemon, orange and pomegranate trees at his family’s country house. This very personal collection was an homage to colour and light, with feminine silhouettes and a sophisticated vintage feel to the designs. Along with the egg yellow we could see powder pink, burnt orange and fuchsia.

A sea of greens at Jasper Conran. Photo: Kensington Leverne

Jasper Conran definitely went green this season with so many shades of the colour, that no two shades were the same: leaf green, khaki green, avocado green, deep green and moss green were among the many shades in light viscose jerseys, blended chiffons and silks with the prints that became his signature and dominated the matching green runway with reflections mirroring the models.



 Sequins & embroidery at Temperley. Photo: Eeve Rinne

While most garments were simple and wearable there was a glamorous touch with sequins and embroidered pieces, that made the muted browns and greens glimmer and shine over the models. What will make its way to the high streets is always the hottest question, but it is safe to say the colours we saw this season on the runway and the feminine silhouettes that were seen everywhere, are looks that we are happy to embrace.

Jean-Pierre Braganza: London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016

Jazz music inspired Braganza’s improvisational approach to designing his new collection: “I never liked jazz when I was growing up,” he said backstage. “But now, the fact that it’s so structured and yet so chaotic really fascinates me.” 





This spring/summer 2016 season, the British Fashion Council has moved London Fashion Week from its traditional home at Somerset House to the more edgy and urban surroundings of Brewer Street in Soho. One of the stand-out shows at the new venue was Jean-Pierre Braganza's vivid and fluid collection, Jeanne-Marie Cilento reports

Brilliant, painterly colours for SS16

THE small streets radiating out from Soho's Brewer Street were crowded with people waiting impatiently to go into shows at the start of London Fashion Week. The guests for Jean Pierre Braganza's new collection showed their invitations to the burly but pleasant English security men and practically raced up the steep walkway into the packed exhibition space. Filled with a fashion crowd eager and leaning forward on the long white benches lining the catwalk, a huge bank of photographers jostled for positions at one end ~ getting ready for the show to start.

The music, loud and drumming, resounded in the white, brightly lit space designed by David Collins. Willowy pale models came out on to the catwalk in striking silhouettes, mixing black and white with brilliant dashes of colour on high-waisted trousers, trench-coats, and jumpsuits with prints inspired by the Bauhaus.

 Long, sinous evening dresses in deep blue

The collection called Whiplash, named after the Miles Teller film, included shapes that were both classic and retro with long bias cut dresses and sharp suits with clever contemporary construction on display. The most striking were the full length evening dresses – midnight blue, figure-hugging, show-stoppers that would capture the attention of a room. Braganza reveals and conceals enough for the imagination with deep plunge V neck dresses in silky satin. 

Breaking away from last season’s monochromes, Braganza did venture out with a more vibrant and artistic colour palette. Although born in London, Braganza was raised in Canada but returned to study and graduate from Central Saint Martins. His work with Roland Mouret before setting up his own label, inspires his beautifully cut long dresses. 

A Bauhaus aesthetic for the prints

This season Braganza mixed asymmetric shapes and forms with a cut-out shoulder or a half-train dress plus deconstructed frocks that were half blazer, half satin shift. His colours included sunflower yellow, Cobalt blue, poppy red and he used materials such as satin, feathers, sequins, organza, and silk for the floaty dresses that matched with a multi-coloured, strappy stiletto.

The white and black jackets and trousers that opened the show in cool monochrome tones gradually became more and more brilliantly hued creating a crescendo of pattern and colour by the end ~ but still within a disciplined palette of red, white and dark blues. When the designer came out to take his bow, he appeared with a closely shaven crew cut and a dark minimalist ensemble ~ much less exhuberant than his new collection.