Life  1915-2010

Gino's family was not immune to these events, and in combination with family problems, Gino was left alone in Italy with his mother and sister. His father and two brothers returned to the United States.

As the storm clouds of war gathered, Gino married Cristina. The war burnt away the artist and cyclist, revealing a partisan fighting for his family's survival.

War's aftermath finds Gino struggling, rebuilding from the rubble -- the "art of survival." With many of his dreams swept away and a family to support, he rekindled his love of art.

His desire to reunite his family with his father and brothers in America was blocked by McCarthyism and the red scare of communism.

Gino finally returned home to the United States in the 1950's. However, the America he knew as a child no longer existed; he had to relearn her language and ways.

In the remaining decades of the 20th century, in the midst of rapid social, economic and technological changes, Gino rebuilt his world still pursuing his two passions: cycling and art.

Gino's art is rooted in his life. Read more about Gino's life and art in a soon to be published book.

Gino Manelli was born in Philadelphia to Italian immigrant parents in 1915. His parents came from the Italian region of Abruzzo. His early years were spent in south Philadelphia in the tenements and shops of the neighborhood of Catherine St.

While World War I raged in Europe, Gino's father prospered in the United States. In 1922, having made a small fortune, his father moved his family back to Italy.

Gino, at eight, found himself in Abruzzo in the town of Teramo, adjusting to a new way of life. In the years to come, Gino found his two lasting passions -- cycling and art.

By age 18 he was professionally competing in the sport of cycling. During this period Gino also began to draw -- his other passion. When not cycling, his life was art. He was defined by the cycle or the brush.

By the 1930's Italy, Mussolini and Fascism had found each other. And the economic catastrophy we know as the great depression had enveloped most of the world.

 

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