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 though 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, leave Palermo and sail to Napoli, and eventually to America, in search of a more rewarding life. After a hard journey they arrive in New York (January 10, 1966), and from there make their way to San Francisco. After having worked for others for about a year, Frank, together with a partner, opens his own commercial photographic studio. But the partnership, though commercially successful, is confining to Frank's artistic sensibilities, so that, in 1973, he separates from the partner and opens another studio, all by himself, still in San Francisco. The eighties are a period of great success for Frank, in a city which comes to know and appreciate his skills and talents. Not content with this success, however, Frank decides to get into auto racing. In this endeavor he is rewarded with several victories in his Alfa Romeo 2500, a car he still owns.

In 1997 Frank, feeling perhaps guilty for not having given much time to the community, decides, with a dear friend now gone, to launch an organization for Sicilians, albeit open to all ethnicities. And so the "National Sicilian American Foundation" is born.

Since the last five years Frank devotes 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, which is misinterpreted by so many. Others will have the task of evaluating what he has done; for himself, he will be very busy planning the future of the NSAF, which he hopes will be brilliant and full of compelling events, so as to redound to the honor and respect of the entire Sicilian community.