In the late afternoon of Thursday 23 May 2024 in the exhibition hall, located on the first floor of the Museum of the History of Genoa in the Porto Antico of Genoa, the exhibition “Rossoblù pencils and brushes” was inaugurated in the presence of the author. The caricatures of Franco Buffarello”.
Buffarello, from Genoa and Genoa, at seventy years of age is a sort of “living advertisement” of how to use one’s time happily after having completed one’s working career (he taught, after being a student, at the Liceo Artistico – first Municipal and then State – “Niccolò Barabino” from Genoa, being a colleague of Prof. Stefano Massa, who exchanged some words with him today, which we report): he is both an international level caricaturist (already included forty-two years ago in a list of the ten best in the world by the Jury of the XIX Salon International de la Caricature in Montreal, Canada) is a skilled piano player in the musical Trio “1 + 1 Band”.
The exhibition presents digital enlargements of caricatural portraits of many of the members of the Genoa squad in the championship which will end tonight and that of the «Mister» of the rossoblù team. Alberto «Gila» Gilardino, as well as one of the «flag» Claudio Onofri with the current «look» and, in smaller formats, others of current and past rossoblù footballers and some «excellent» Genoa fans.
You were not only – and continue to be – a great caricaturist of the rossoblù world, but in your youth you were also occasionally a teammate of the great Roberto «o’Rei di Crocefieschi» Pruzzo…
Yes, at the beginning of the Seventies I played in the youth teams of Group C and he in those of Genoa. We were called to a Ligurian team that played three matches on the French Riviera, winning two and losing one. I played as a right winger and, when I made crosses into the center of the opponent’s penalty area, the defenders who had to oppose his overbearing aerial cuts… had a bad time!
What is your best memory of a Genoa member to whom you gave a caricature of him?
I would say that of Gigi Simoni, to whom I took her, when he was coaching the rossoblù in a pre-season training camp in Chatillon in the Aosta Valley: he behaved towards me like a true gentleman!
If you had to compare your drawing style to that of a Genoa player from the present or past, who would your choice be?
On Milan Badelj.
Why?
Because the caricaturist must be very methodical in creating the details of his work just as the current Genoa captain is.
