Born in Milan, he studied art there and in Venice. Since 1966, he has
lived in Camden, Maine.
He's also an architect, composer, pianist, violinist, cellist,
guitarist, and yacht designer.
"His art is in the permanent collection of the Farnsworth Museum in
Rockland, Maine."
http://www.harborsquaregallery.com/artists/i_gobbato.htm
(includes photo and three exhibits of his paintings)
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=imero+gobbato&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
(some illustrations)
http://www.downeast.com/Down-East-Magazine/May-2008/Renaissance-Man/
(interview from last spring)
Excerpts:
“.........I was able to avoid the military to a certain extent,” he
continues in accented English, his words flowing in a gently rocking
rhythm, his R’s lightly trilled. “There was a draft, but they didn’t
get me.” He fled to the mountains, where a kindly priest, a member of
the Italian resistance movement, took note of his musical abilities
and provided him a cover: church organist. But the army harassed
Gobbato’s father about his son’s whereabouts. Hearing his father had
been arrested, the eighteen-year-old Imero came down from the hills.
“But that was not the end,” he says with a hint of mischief. “I
escaped again.”
Escape is a recurring theme in Gobbato’s life and work. As a boy, he
escaped the gloom of Mussolini’s Italy by inventing a utopia he called
Humbravana, and for more than seventy years he has continued to ride
his imagination there, returning with hundreds of written and visual
artifacts — short stories and travelogues; etchings and intaglios of
people, places, flora, and fauna; detailed maps of important cities; a
dictionary of the language; even musical compositions and blueprints
for instruments.
After the war, he escaped Italy, a place he loves dearly but where he
says he cannot live because of the injustices he witnessed. Over the
next dozen or so years, he would try life in Argentina, Guatemala, New
York City, California, Connecticut, and Florida before settling in
Maine, which he and his wife, a California beauty named Josette, first
visited on vacation. “The coastline is what attracted me. I like very
much this contrast which is reflected so often in my life — the
liquidity, the fluidity of the water, the constant, sometimes friendly
conflict of water caressing the beach, then retreating, then
caressing. Sometimes the water comes against the rocks and there is no
more caressing. That reflects so much — the rocks, the harshness of
the coastline.........”
http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=hsrgw&pageid=6#/page54/
(another magazine article)
http://martingallerycharleston.com/woodcuts.html
("This collection of woodcuts depicts life in HUMBRAVANA. Humbravana
is a world dreamed up by Imero as a child in Italy. It has evolved in
intricate detail over seventy years in the form of music, maps,
language, philosophy and government. Humbravana is a place of justice,
truth and uncommon beauty; a place of utopian harmony.")
http://martingallerycharleston.com/intaglios.html
(intaglios of Humbravana)
http://martingallerycharleston.com/paintings.html
(more paintings)
About Williams' "The King with Six Friends":
"It is difficult for a King to find a job. After all, without a
kingdom, who needs a King? King Zar is a King without a kingdom. With
twelve gold pieces, a suit, a sword and a really good attitude, he
sets out to find a job. Along the way his good nature earns him six
good friends. Those six good friends earn him a princess and a
fortune."
Books illustrated (about half of them)
1966 - Beneath the Hill by Jane Louise Curry
"When Maggie and her cousins become involved with Kaolin and his
strange family and the secrets beyond the door in the hill, do they
discover the evil of the mining going on nearby. A treasure is soon to
be found, but by which group!"
1966 - Catch a Little Rhyme by Eve Merriam
1967 - The Bull Beneath the Walnut Tree, and Other Stories by Anita
Hewett
1968 - The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum
"Wonderful retelling of Cinderella in which the prince initially
scorns her. Watch how Girl-Go-With-The-Goats is transformed into the
Matchless Maiden."
1968 - I am your misfortune; a Lithuanian folk tale retold by
Marguerita Rudolph
1968 - The White Stone by Gunnel Linde
"By possessing the smooth white stone, children calling themselves
Fideli & Prince Perilous are able to attempt things they would never
have dared. With it they entered into a strange, magic world of their
own, but at the last the real world impinged on their fragile,
imaginary one with nearly tragic consequences."
1968 - Tony and the Wonderful Door by Howard Fast
"Wonderful story of Tony, who lived an ordinary life in New York city
in the early 1920s, ordinary except, that is, when he went through the
wonderful door in his backyard - a place with lush fields and meadows
and real Indians, and best of all, Tony's friend Peter Van Doben.
Story tells of Tony's adventures on both sides of the door...."
1968 - The Practical Man by George Mendoza
"Hirple was a practical man - he never did anything without first
asking himself why? Why fix the leak in the roof when you can move the
bathtub under it? Why mess up the bed when you can sleep on the floor?
He never made any mistakes . until the day a strange trunk landed at
his door . "
1968 - The King with Six Friends by Jay Williams
1968 - The Mushmen by Solveig Paulson Russell
1969 - The Great Cheese Conspiracy by Jean Van Leeuwen
".....about a gang of three mice (Merciless Marvin, Fats the Fuse and
Raymond the Rat) who are tired of the 'slim-pickings' in their home in
an old movie-theater, who decide to pull a robbery in a nearby cheese
shop! They make what they think are fool-proof plans but chaos
awaits."
1969 - The Boy and the Dolphin by Abraham Rothberg
1969 - Oliver at Sea by Christopher Bernard Wilson
1969 - The Good-for-Nothing Prince by Jay Williams
1970 - Tops and Bottoms; adapted from a Folk Tale by Lesley Conger
1970 - Uncle Max and the Sea Lion by Carolyn Lane
1970 - Patsy-o and his Wonderful Pets by Bryan MacMahon
"In his matchless style, Bryan MacMahon tells a story of Patsy-O, who
lived with his mother, his sister, and his five wonderful pets - a
cricket, a cat, a cock, a donkey and a dog."
1970 - Foma the Terrible; a Russian Folktale by Aleksandr Nikolaevich
1826-1871 - translated by Guy Daniels
1970 - Big Fish by Aileen Olsen
1970 - The Brave Soldier and a Dozen Devils; a Latvian tale by
Marguerita Rudolph
"A day when strange things happened to a young soldier. When a rich
man invited him to spend the night in his big fine house he was
puzzled. But that night, locked in the turret room, the door swung
open & twelve devils tumbled into the room, determined to carry the
soldier off."
1972 - Beany and his New Recorder by Carol Panter
"Beany gets a very very old, very fine recorder, made in Venice, that
came with a legend: Play ye this pipe with joy in your heart & a bird
in a tree shall join in."
1975 - Barney the Beard by Eve Bunting
1976 - A Bucketful of Moon by Toby Talbot
"Distraught when the moon's reflection escapes from her bucket, the
old woman tries to capture it from the aky, a goat's eye, a
windowpane, & a stream."
1983 - Snoop and the Zuni Treasure by Marie Marra
2000 (c 1965) - The Whisper of Glocken: a novel of the Minnipins by
Carol Kendall
Lenona.
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