Stephan Hamel tells the story of his Italian grandfather Cosimo Lorenzoni who was sent to India in 1937, to lay marble floors in a palace, where the outbreak of war brought a dramatic change of fortune.
A podcast where artists tell their stories through the materials they choose.
Hi. This is materially speaking where artists tell their stories through the materials they choose. I'm at the top left hand side of Italy, south of the marble quarries of Carrara in Pietro Santa, a town nicknamed Little Athens because of its long tradition of carving marble. In fact, in this area, generations of artists have been carving marble since Michelangelo first came here 500 years ago to choose marble for his Pieta from the local quarries. Today, I'm sitting in my kitchen with my friend, Stefan Hamel, on a hilltop above Pietra Santa, surrounded by olive groves and woods where wild boar roam.
Sarah Monk:In winter, we can hear the pop of hunters' guns, and in summer we might take a hike over the mountains, or drop down the hillside to walk through the pine forests to the wild beach. Soon after meeting Stefan, we discovered an Indian connection. My great great grandfather lived in the same village in India that Stefan's mother went to school, a 100 years later. In fact, since my grandfather and father were also born in India, we chatted quite a bit about this, and Stefan mentioned how his grandfather was an artisan in India before the second World War. However, when I sat him down with a coffee to tell me the whole story, it really surprised me.
Sarah Monk:I hope you like it.
Stephan Hamel:You know, the fascinating story for me is, the marble also is a link, like, through the palaces and all the the beautiful sculptures that were done to express power, I think that this area has beside the real history of sculpture, there's also this very particular story which is, the expression of imperialism.
Sarah Monk:Stefan divides his time between Vienna, Milan, and Pietro Santa. So by way of a sound check, I asked him what he brings from Austria and what he takes back from Italy.
Stephan Hamel:Being half from this area and half from Vienna, I'm the eternal immigrant and, moving from here to there, things. I bring, from Vienna, obviously, chocolate cakes and all that very lovely Austrian stylish stuff, and I bring from here to Vienna, pastel, you know, to make the pesto, in marble and, olive oil and, cheese and, wine, obviously. So this is my exchange between Austria and, the regional culture. This place means a lot because I grew up here. I was born in Bangkok, and when we moved to, Europe, we came with the boat from Singapore, and we landed in, Geneva.
Stephan Hamel:I will always remember the scene of my mother my father showing me Europe, and he showed me a volcano. It must have been Ostromboli or the Etna. And then I remember also arriving into the port and my parents showing me my Italian grandparents, they were waiting for, us to pick us children, up and bring us to Giustania, which is above Serevetsa. So, this is just to make you understand that the place is somehow in my DNA and, my grandfather Cosimo Lorenzzoni was working in the marble business, since he finished school. He and his brother, Pietro Lorenzoni, were the sons of, let's say, the richest family of Giustania.
Stephan Hamel:That meant they got a cow, which is very rural, but it is another dimension, it was another dimension. So in the twenties, they were sent to school, which was already a privilege. They went to the Stagios Tagi, and at the time the Stagios Tagi was still in Ghiosto di Sant'Agostino, and, so they studied. My uncle Pietro became a sculptor and he became a professor at Academia in Torino after the war. He worked with Mastroianni.
Stephan Hamel:I I just found, some with different people. He was quite a character and became important because for Torino there were a lot of artists, but few of them really had the knowledge on how to work, with marble. This is something that, the people don't, really think about it, but it is quite a hard job because you have to decide how, you can work with the patterns of the stone cut and how to develop a lot of interesting stories. Like him, there were several guys. I just met, the grandfather of, my friends, from mother's side.
Stephan Hamel:The father also did this type of job. I heard about others who went to the US. Somebody did the cathedral in Chicago, somebody did the 1st skyscrapers and and and so on. And so in Pietro Santa, there is a lot of this memory lost. I'm trying and I tried, obviously, to save our memory, and I got also the best friend of my grandfather, who was Aldo Lariucci, who joined him at a certain point in India, and he wrote also some lines about this story.
Stephan Hamel:While my grandfather at Stagios Staggi did his final work, to get graduated, and that was an altar. And this altar was sent away and nobody knew where. Then in 37, and I just found, 30 page text he wrote telling about this journey he did, in 37, Bertelli from Masa, who employed him, sent him to India to survey the finishing with marble of a palace in Calcutta, of a marajah. So he left, and he's describing how he's living in the thirties by train to Geneva and, the emotions leaving his wife with a little daughter, my mother who was, like, 5 years old, at home. He got on the boat and it was everything was very luxurious.
Stephan Hamel:Obviously, the the life, the elegant life on a transatlantic cruiser going to from Geneva to Bombay was for him a new experience and he was very charmed and very charming and enjoyed it very much to participate to that social life. But when he got to Bombay and he had to take a train to Calcutta, he realized, the the big splash he got into and got totally, afraid and astonished and, scandalized and couldn't realize that something like that India in the 30 was existing. Like, people taking bath naked and, in the spiritual guys, lot of levels, the value of the woman and this and that, that he really got very shocked by this experience, but then, he arrived to Calcutta and was able to create his Ambient and he was quite good in organizing the work and everything, so he was very happy and called his wife and the daughter to join. So they came in 38, but, the war started and they were taken prisoners by His Majesty King George, put in a concentration camp that was absolutely nothing to do with what we think about concentration camps. It was a set of villas in the Himalaya like, colonial British, properties that were not used anymore and so all these Italians were put up there and the only complaint my grandfather, did, about his imprisonment by the British was that, he got bored, but, lucky him.
Stephan Hamel:When the war finished, in 46, the British decided to send them back, I mean, everybody back, but my mother seems that she was able, as a 12 year old, to, create such a tragedy for the British officials that they decided that they could stay. So my grandfather started his own business, bought a marble quarry in India and started to do major works in Delhi. He did, the interior of the parliament. He did the, American embassy and a lot of other things. In, I think it was 47.
Sarah Monk:Stefan is speaking of the partition of British India in 1947 when the country was divided into the 2 states of Pakistan and India, causing the displacement of between 10 to 12000000 people along religious lines and an enormous refugee crisis and sadly much loss of life.
Stephan Hamel:When that happened, my grandfather lost everything, because he had a company and his other shareholder was a Muslim, Muslim Indian, who decided obviously to leave and everything, which was Muslim, was confiscated by the Indian state. So that was with the independence, and he did other major things for the new Indian state, and he was very good and the people liked him very much because he had this very ancient, let's say, renaissance knowledge on how to treat the material. My mother went to to Woodstock where, she opened she was opened up to a totally different story, also from a religious point of view since my grandmother was very Roman Catholic and, my mother went to Anglican school. Even though they remained very close to the church, after the school, well, my mother started to work for the Italian Embassy. My grandfather, in the meanwhile, did also, he executed also the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi.
Stephan Hamel:That was quite important to me. Before he died, I was able to get him in, like, the cross of the city of Lucca, for Lucchese, who did something special in the world, and so I was very proud of him for that. But, most special story is that, my parents my father, became Austrian diplomat, and his first posting was New Delhi. And so at the oldest parties that, the diplomats do, he met my mother, and they married in, 57 in the Cathedral of New Delhi. They married on this famous altar my grandfather did at the Stagios Stagios, which by coincidence ended up in the Cathedral of New Delhi.
Stephan Hamel:They married there. My sister, Marie Thessina, was baptized there. John Paul the second made his only mea culpa done by the Roman Catholic Church on the damages, they have done to other religions from that altar. And there is also a link to work my grandfather did for the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial. My grandfather was very proud, also of the fact that Taj Mahal was done in Karara marble and, you know, from Ephysos, to many many other things, the Carrara Mabo, let's call it Carrara Mabo, even though in Pietro Santa we are more close to the Altissimo Mabo, but we are, you know, an area that gave a material for so many thousands of years to the whole world and there has always been this exchange that makes the area very, very particular.
Stephan Hamel:I mean, the people here are, as Michelangelo said, a bit, stubborn and difficult, but they are really in the position that 2 centuries they always managed to dialogue with different mentalities, with different, people, like the this, grandfather of my friends, he worked in, Austria, and he worked before the war in, Hallein, which I was always asking, what does it mean, Hallein? What do you do in Hallein with marble? Hallein is in Salzkammergut, which is, above, next to Salzburg, but, just below Bertesgaden. And, in Bertesgaden, there was obviously the the villa of Atlas Nest, of Adolf Hitler. So I made 1+1 and said, well, fabulous, he was doing the floors of that place and, he obviously never admitted.
Stephan Hamel:He said he was in Santana at the end when the Nazis shot down everybody. So there are also these psychological games that I think are extremely dramatic and funny. These people were needed from all the different regimes. Growing up in Pietra Santa, you know, we saw so many statues that were left in the in the gardens of some strange South American dictators or Saddam Hussein, and I'm very fascinated to make an analysis of this marble history also from the point of view luxury and power. The people don't want also this, let's say luxury, yes, power, no.
Stephan Hamel:They don't want to be confronted with this issue because they are executors or they are creating beautiful things, but, they are they don't want to discuss, which is, legitimate because artists can advise of the disaster, but don't have to fight against it necessarily. It would be fabulous to do also this analysis on, to work out how many statues were done here for all these dictators, how many were not finished in time before the dictator was sent home or to another dimension, and and to to make a history through, marble statues that failed their mission. It is amazing if you think about it how a small little town like Edrazanto this is full of stories and then can tell so many, events.
Sarah Monk:After Stefan told me his grandfather's amazing story, I wanted to bring things right up to date. I was interested to hear how growing up in the Marble area had influenced Stefan, and I asked him to describe his work.
Stephan Hamel:I define myself as a brand catalyst. I worked, for 25 years as an international, sales and marketing director for different design companies in Italy. After that, I decided that maybe my best skills are in branding and understanding how to translate certain feelings, certain aesthetic emotions into the market and doing some things for myself like small paintings and doing carpets, which I love very much, and I did, regarding marble, my first edition After 25 years of selling this furniture for the house and all these things you obviously need, but in the end of the day are not lasting forever, decided that I wanted to do something very very special, and I asked my friends the Campana brothers if they would design me a monumental fountain. So I did a fountain which is 15 per 5 meters, set like an apartment, and with 12 white marble white kara kara marble, manhills you could call them, and I love very much their work because they had this manhills, where the water is coming out, so on this manhills, on this white beautiful marble, there will be soon green alks and different things, and so it is like this transformation of the marble into the nature again and everything is hold up of a very, minimalistic simple basin done also in,
Sarah Monk:in
Stephan Hamel:a in a gray marble, and now I'm trying to sell it's a limited edition of 3 pieces, and so I hope I find some major, client who wants to invest in, in a big monumental fountain. If I sell, I will keep going on in doing marble for fountain and fireplaces because I like very much this, idea of the material used in in 2 different, and the transformation of the marble. With the water, you can create with the alks, It changed colors. It changed everything, and with the fire, it also when white marble get burned, it changed also color. And I like very much this game.
Stephan Hamel:You can see it also if you go up to the quarries, where they leave these rusty pieces of, have you seen them, this sort of flat, things they push inside, and then they blow them up, and then they they leave them around, And that has a extraordinary look when the marble gets, this rusty thing. And I I like very much this, you know, maybe our generation is is so sophisticated that the white marble is not enough, and we want to get it, colored but in a natural way. And and and so it's quite funny.
Sarah Monk:So thanks to Stefan Hamel. And if you want to see a video of his Fontana Etrurio, see his website at stephenhammel.com. Production thanks go to Michael Hall. Musical thanks go to Douglas Yeo, Craig Kriedel, and Phil Humphreys. Thanks to Duncan Thornley at MAP Studios.
Sarah Monk:For facts, photos, and more check out our website or Instagram both called Materially Speaking.