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Happy ending

D'Artagnan and the drawings found in a suitcase that the Moma like.

Abandoned by his mother in Venice and raised in an orphanage, he arrives in Rome in the 1930s and makes an appearance in Fellini's films. But he can not "break through" and isolates himself, taking refuge in painting. His works, found in a suitcase in Testaccio, are works of Art.
by Luciano Ferraro


Ele D'Artagnan with Pietro Gallina as a child

From a shack in Rome to the Moma in New York. It is the fairy tale (posthumous) of Michele Stinelli, art name Ele D'Artagnan, who arrived by bike from Treviso to Cinecittà, reduced to poverty after becoming one of the frantic faces of Federico Fellini. Years as a beggar, his only refuge in his art: he painted by makeshift means - a lipstick stub on the back of a poster detached by a wall - his psychedelic and sensual world. Hundreds of drawings that filled four suitcases ended up in a cave in Testaccio.

Among the great ones

Now art critics from all over the world are discussing these works, reviews have been published in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and exhibitions have been set up. The Rothschild and Andy Warhol Foundations have included Ele among the great ones. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been collected and transformed into a social center in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, to help children, young people and the elderly with music, theater, painting and languages courses. The man who knows the secrets of the fantastic and subterranean life of D'Artagnan is a Roman former music teacher, being his position precarious he flew to Brazil "because tired to have to try getting his job in the high school Socrates every September".

Ten step mothers and one great (suffered) love

His name is Pietro Gallina, he is the heir of D'Artagnan. He was a child in 1953 when he saw this gentleman coming from Veneto, histrionic and brilliant, with big musketeer mustache and sideburns. The Gallina family rented him a bed for 200 lire per night. He came from a Venetian orphanage, Santa Maria della Pietà, the fourteenth-century Antico "Spedale" in which Vivaldi taught music to children. He tells of going from one family to another: "I had ten step mothers". He arrived in Rome in the 1930s for doing his military service as a trumpeter in the marching band of the king and the duce. He moves to Milan, works as a salesman, a cabaret artist and in the meantime he wins literary competitions. Then he returns to Rome, wants to become an actor. "With him - says Gallina - I thought I was in a scene of "Bicycle thieves". We turn up to the offices of film productions. If he does not find a job as generic or extra, he asks for jobs in restaurants, or knocks at the Vatican ».

Extras

He made an appearance in "The Treasure Island", a Rai tv play by Anton Giulio Majano, in 1959. He can be spotted in a scene by Toby Dammit, the episode signed by Fellini in the multi-author film "Tre passi nel delirio". The director places him in his surreal gallery and also calls him for Amarcord. "Life seems kind to D'Artagnan, who, around that time," recalls Gallina, "finds accommodation in Via del Babuino". He falls in love with Edy Campagnoli, the lady from the tv show "Lascia o raddoppia". He is thorn apart when she marries soccer player Lorenzo Buffon. Then Cinecittà, because of the crisis, closes the door in his face. He ends up in a shanty town, he starts drawing. It descends into the abyss. "The shantytown is healed, the city offers council homes for families. D'Artagnan is alone, he has no right. Ends up on the street. In those years we had, with some friends like Guido Zaccagnini, the musicologist who teaches at Santa Cecilia Conservatory, a rehearsal room with our instruments. D'Artagnan takes refuge there, barricades himself behind the armored door. "

Obsession

The former actor has an obsession, he is afraid of being persecuted by his mother's family. Because, in a fit, he returns to Venice, gets the name of the woman who had brought him to the Pietà, he discovers that she was a harpist at La Scala. He convinced himself that he is the son of Arturo Toscanini. He asks to be recognized by his mother's relatives. It gets worse, he gets threatening. He is reported (sued?) , then arrested. He ends up in a cell, when he returns to Rome, he finds it a bitter city. He draws and writes letters: "I am proud of myself, even if many people dislike me. Then I stagger, stagger and paint to recover and I challenge you. You are blind and deaf, today, tomorrow and always. I offer you this.... my living flesh, my paintings, my life kept in these sweet, warm, warm suitcases. I've never sold off anything, neither me nor my drawings ». A short article on "Il Messaggero" on October 25th, 1987 tells that the artist Ele D'Artagnan died on the street in Trastevere. «I try to find out more about it - reconstructs Gallina - and I discover that he had been helped instead, taken from the road to the Forlanini hospital. But he refuses care and food, lets himself go, dies after a week. " The suitcases with the drawings remain abandoned in the Bottaro cave, Pietro Feliziano, in via Monti di Testaccio. D'Artagnan had left a document in which he asked Gallina to organize an exhibition, but not in Italy.

The New York Times page

Gallina leaves for New York, a gallerist understands that there is genius in those drawings. The New York Times critic Roberta Smith sees them: «Images from which you can not look away. D'Artagnan is a great artist ». A success: those visions made with pencils, pens and nail polishes, forgotten on paper towels found in bars are now sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Rai, with Alessandra Raspa, dedicated a long film with the praises of Vittorio Sgarbi: "He builds his reality with the dream". After the one in New York, exhibitions are organized in France, Holland and Brazil. The Heussenstamm Galleries in Frankfurt, in these days, exposes 60 works. "Now I'm struggling to get D'Artagnan back to Italy - says Gallina - there are still lots of drawings never seen, like the 5 in the Moma. Ele made one a day. "

23 novembre 2017 (modifica il 23 novembre 2017 | 18:58)
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