FRANCESCO BONFIGLIO – A BIOGRAPHY
Frank Bonfiglio was born in Trapani, Sicily, on October 28, 1933. He lived and studied in this city for 12 years, including the war years, and obtained his diploma from middle school at the age of 11 and a half. Subsequently the family moved to Palermo, where his father, returning home after having been a prisoner of war, joined the Carabinieri with the rank of Brigadier.
Even being very desirous of continuing his studies, Frank was constrained to go to work by economic circumstances. After a few false starts in areas in which he had no interest, he began a career in a studio of photography (the best in Palermo). Unfortunately he also had to let go of his musical studies, a blow to someone for whom music had always been a ruling passion.
After four years at the studio of photography Frank began to work on his own as a photographer. In 1955 he was called to the military, and he served in the Air Force as a driver. He was (fortunately!) stationed at Nisida, near Naples, and here he met his eventual wife Lina. On taking leave of the military Frank and Lina married and went to live in Palermo. Here he opened, in 1957, his first studio of photography, expanding it quickly to include a color printing facility.
In 1965, precisely on December 31, Frank and Lina, together with their children Sebastian and Annette, left Palermo and sailed to Napoli, and eventually to America, in search of a more rewarding life. After a hard journey they arrived in New York (January 10, 1966), and from there made their way to San Francisco. After having worked for others for about a year, Frank, together with a partner, opened his own commercial photographic studio. The partnership, though commercially successful, confined Frank’s artistic sensibilities, so that, in 1973, he left the partnership and opened another studio of his own in San Francisco. The eighties were a period of great success for Frank, in a city which came to know and appreciate his skills and talents. Not content with this success, however, Frank decided to get into auto racing. In this endeavor he was rewarded with several victories in his Alfa Romeo 2500.
In 1997 Frank, feeling perhaps guilty for not having given much time to the community, decided, with a dear friend now gone, to launch an organization for Sicilians, albeit open to all ethnicities. And so the “National Sicilian American Foundation” was born.
Frank devoted all of his free time to the NSAF, always looking for fresh ideas with which to impart to others his enthusiasm for the Sicilian culture and way of life. We his successors will have the task of learning from what he has done and be very busy planning the future of the NSAF, which we hope will be brilliant and full of compelling events, so as to bring honor and respect to the entire Sicilian community.
