Giovanni Crupi

(1859–1925)

It all begins with an idea. An idea who is the first artist we start with. I don’t know by I always knew it would be Crupi. Almost forgotten from one side, and the one who taught von Gloeden to make photos. He was a friend and colleague of Wilhelm von Gloeden. Pasquale Verdicchio in his book Looters, Photographers, and Thieves: Aspects of Italian Photographic Culture in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries states that von Gloeden learned the basics of photography from Crupi, in whose studio he became an apprentice. In the field of landscape photography, the two friends and colleagues seem to have influenced one another. There is a small number of male nudes produced by Crupi, set in archaeological sites in Syracuse, are attributed to the influence of Gloeden. In 1899 Crupi left Italy and opened a photographic studio in Egypt near Cairo, in Heliopolis. His studio in Teatro Greco, Taormina, did not close. It was taken over by his brother-in-law, Francesco Galifi (Taormina 1865–1951), who specialised in Sicilian landscapes, not only making his own photographs but also printing out negatives from the Crupi archive, including works by von Gloeden.