All small communities have their characters, whose personalities and quirks become evident once you are familar with the people there. Italians in general are, I feel, amongst the most unique people on the planet with their outspoken style and mannerisms. Sicilians perhaps even more so. And amongst these, islanders communities are often even more unique, especially the smallest like the Aeolian island of Panarea.

The uniqueness and recent history of Panarea is notable, for an island barely more than a mile square. It attracted the attention of an anternational group of artists from the early 1950s who were the first outsiders to buy property and land there. This group of intrepid hippy adventurers included my father Vincent who initially arrived as a student in 1956, when he was living in Milan and attending the Brera Academy of Arts. He was brought there by the painter Anselmo Francesconi for whom my father worked briefly to help prepare an exhibition of sculptures. Anselmo and his school friend and fellow painter Leonardo Cremonini were the pioneers of Panarea, and they hoped to create an artist colony on this beautiful, unspoilt and practically unknown sliver of rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Shortly afterwards the film director Michelangelo Antonioni used Panarea and adjacent satellite rock Lisca Bianca as the setting for his film “L’Avventura”, which helped put the island on the map. Other curious artists, art dealers, and creatives then arrived, these included the Chilean Surrealist Sebastian Matta, Toto Koopman and Erika Brausen of the leading contemporary art Hanover Gallery in London, Swiss oriental antiques dealer Araxi Garabedian, tailor and later antiques dealer Giulio Cremonini, actress Esmeralda Ruspoli, and subsequently Paolo Tilche and Miriam Beltrami who established and built the now iconic Raya Hotel. 

This unique selection of people in the arts, along with their often aristocratic friends, collaborators and clients, set the tone of the future style of Panarea; an elegant, artistic aura with hippy overtones which endured for over half a century. Walking barefoot was normal, wearing asiatic garments and fabrics was the accepted fashion there, evenings and dinners were illuminated only by stars and flickering paraffin storm lanterns, and a close knit and wonderful, typically Italian sense of community was created amongst those who found or established a home on this unique and naturally beautiful island. Panarea was untouched even by electricity until the mid 1980s, hence the candles and lanterns, a style which has been maintained until now, although recently lights are beginning to pollute the streets and terraces now more than ever before – see my blog post about this here (in Italian). Also more and more of the pretty country pathways meandering amidst the trees, rocks and boulders of the island are being bulldozered and cemented over to create roads for moped and golf carts to pass on, which is so sad if not tragic to see happen. Walking was always such a unique aspect of Panarea, now no-one seems able to do so. 

I have been photographing the people of the island of Panarea for 40 years. I also include people who have chosen to live there, either temporarily or permanently, over many years. It started as a bit of fun, now it has become a real project which I know I will never stop doing. 

The faces of the Aeolian Islanders have the sea, Sicily, the sun, the wind and time itself etched into their skin. For this reason I am endlessly intrigued by their features, their stories, their lives. Things which I hope to evoke here.

I have outlined the start of this story here, I will continue it as much as I can, and hopefully there will still be stories to tell of the unique people of a unique island in the future. We will see if Panarea does remain unique, and not a little suburb which sadly seems to be its current direction that so many now wish its destination to be.