62 Facts About Riccardo Gualino

Riccardo Gualino was an Italian business magnate and art collector.

Riccardo Gualino was a patron and an important film producer.

Riccardo Gualino's activities included banking, manufacture of rayon, confectionery, chemicals and artificial leather.

Riccardo Gualino became involved in risky speculations with the French financier Albert Oustric.

Riccardo Gualino made another recovery after his release and again engaged in a broad range of ventures in various European countries.

Riccardo Gualino was born in Biella on 25 March 1879 in the Riva neighbourhood, the tenth of twelve children.

Riccardo Gualino's parents were Giuseppe Gualino, who owned a small jewellery company, and Rina Colombino.

Riccardo Gualino decided not to join his brothers in the family business.

In 1896, at the age of 17, Riccardo Gualino moved to Sestri Ponente where he found work in the company of Attilio Bagnara, who imported timber from Florida and was the husband of his sister Marta.

Riccardo Gualino was employed as a clerk at the sawmill in Sestri and supervised the landings and shipments from Genoa.

Riccardo Gualino proved to be an able salesman, selling lumber in the north of Italy.

Riccardo Gualino left the company in 1901 when his brother-in-law accused him of doing business on his own account with the clientele.

Riccardo Gualino continued to work as a travelling salesman for various other companies.

Riccardo Gualino managed the import of spruce from Trentino, Tyrol and Carinthia for Ramponi of Milan, and gained useful insight into the forestry business.

In 1905 Riccardo Gualino began a limited partnership to trade in lumber with Gurgo Salice's sons Pier Giuseppe and Ermanno.

Riccardo Gualino became involved as a shareholder in a small bank, the Banca agricola di Casale.

Riccardo Gualino expanded, and in 1912 became the Sindacato nazionale calce e cementi.

Riccardo Gualino always shared management with the family and ran the enterprise on a fairly conservative basis.

In 1907 Riccardo Gualino married Gurgo Salice's daughter Cesarina, then aged seventeen, at the Addolorata church in Casale Monferrato.

Riccardo Gualino made it into a private limited company with capital supplied by Harry Piaggio.

Riccardo Gualino's partners included Gurgo Salice, some directors of the Banca agricola, L Ottina of Pisa, who was engaged in forestry, and Erminio and Gaudenzio Sella of the respected Banca Sella of Biella.

Riccardo Gualino obtained an additional concession in Romania the next year and began making large investments in sawmills, roads and other infrastructure.

In 1910 Riccardo Gualino bought a controlling interest from Baron Armin von Popper in the Forst Union, an indebted company that had various forest properties in the Habsburg Empire and Romania and had a key role in the Austrian forest products export cartel.

Riccardo Gualino hoped to use this position to obtain a discount on the cartel's exorbitant prices but had little success.

Riccardo Gualino partnered with the Piaggio family to obtain a small fleet of sailing ships to transport the lumber via the Black Sea rather than by road.

Riccardo Gualino bought the Cantiere lombardo, which became the Societa nazionale legnami e materiali da costruzione.

Riccardo Gualino began to build a large warehouse on the outskirts of Milan.

Riccardo Gualino had to suspend payments in 1913 and assign the company's assets for disposal by a creditor committee that included the Societa Bancaria Italiana, the Banca Commerciale Italiana and several large Austrian and German banks.

In 1915 some minority shareholders of Riccardo Gualino's failed lumber company brought a lawsuit against him, but he was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Riccardo Gualino had borrowed funds to reclaim land and had erected the first buildings at great expense.

Riccardo Gualino founded the Societa Marittima e Commerciale Italiana in 1914 and the Societa di Navigazione Italo-Americana in 1917, two shipping companies.

Riccardo Gualino reentered the timber and building materials markets, invested in land in Rome, became involved in the manufacture of chemicals and moved into the coal trade, which was very profitable during the war.

Riccardo Gualino was a central figure among a group of intellectuals influenced by Piero Gobetti who had vague but inclusive views about European culture.

In June 1922 Riccardo Gualino moved back to Turin, where he became increasingly interested in modern ballet and decided to help diffuse this form of artistic expression in Italy.

Riccardo Gualino was the first to introduce choreographic forms other than ballet to Italy.

Riccardo Gualino founded the Teatro di Torino in 1925, with a small group of artists and intellectuals.

The theatre was closed in 1931 when Riccardo Gualino was forced into exile on the island of Lipari.

Riccardo Gualino used his huge wealth to amass a large and valuable collection of art.

Riccardo Gualino met the art historian Lionello Venturi in 1918, who advised him to buy work by Amedeo Modigliani.

Riccardo Gualino was the first Italian to buy work by Edouard Manet with La Negresse, a study for Olympia.

Riccardo Gualino saw the Rationalist work of the architect Giuseppe Pagano in an exhibition in 1928.

Riccardo Gualino commissioned Pagano to build his company's headquarters in Turin on Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

Agnelli and Riccardo Gualino made an attempt early in 1918 to take over Credito Italiano.

Agnelli and Riccardo Gualino did not succeed but joined the board of directors of Credito Italiano.

Riccardo Gualino made another unsuccessful attempt to take over Credito Italiano in 1920, and one more failed attempt in 1924.

In 1921 Riccardo Gualino acquired the Banca agricola italiana, a bank that he used to finance his other ventures.

In 1921 Riccardo Gualino acquired Rumianca, which made sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide, used in the production of artificial fibres by SNIA Viscosa.

At the request of Agnelli, Bonaldo Stringher authorized the Banca d'Italia to provide financial help, but Riccardo Gualino had to sell his stake in Fiat and scale back on his efforts to acquire Credito Italiano.

Riccardo Gualino wrote a blunt letter of protest to Benito Mussolini,.

Riccardo Gualino became involved in a series of ventures with Ostric, often highly leveraged.

In 1930 Riccardo Gualino was forced to sell his share in SNIA Viscosa and many other investments to try to reduce his debt.

Riccardo Gualino was arrested in Turin in January 1931 and sentenced to five years confino.

Riccardo Gualino was confined to the Aeolian island of Lipari on charges of fraudulent bankruptcy and suffered the confiscation of all his property.

Riccardo Gualino used his time on Lipari to write the biographical Frammenti di vita.

Riccardo Gualino had been banned for ten years from involvement in industry, but this was relaxed after his release.

Riccardo Gualino had business interests in France, where he had been tried and sentenced in January 1933, but where he still had sizable assets.

Riccardo Gualino lived quietly in Rome and Florence, while his business empire flourished once more.

Riccardo Gualino took great interest in film, and in 1934 founded two film companies at about the same time, Lux francese and Lux italiana.

Riccardo Gualino collaborated with the musicologist Guido Maggiorino Gatti, who had directed the Teatro di Torino, on his first film, Don Bosco, directed by Goffredo Alessandrini.

However, Riccardo Gualino remained "head of studio" in the 1950s, and acted as both financier and producer.

Riccardo Gualino let his son serve as the studio's public face.

Riccardo Gualino died on 6 June 1964 in Florence at the age of 85.