Interview: Franco Maria Ricci’s Elegant System of Beauty

Franco Maria Ricci in 1984, at the launch of FMR U.S.A. at the New York Public Library.

John White Franco Maria Ricci

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Franco Maria Ricci treated beauty as a system: a magazine, a library, a collection, a museum, and finally a maze. His famous arts magazine, FMR, which Jackie Kennedy called “the most beautiful magazine in the world” and Fellini called “the black pearl,” was published from 1982 to 2009. In 2015, Ricci completed a seven-hectare labyrinth in Fontanellato, Italy, not far from Parma and Modena, outside what would become a small museum.

The giant bamboo maze-surrounded museum is a gem in the Fontanellato countryside, and features a sizable collection of Ricci’s own collection of art and books, a 1963 Jaguar E-Type, a bookshop, and a restaurant. Not being far from Parma, the cheese, prosciutto and vinegar at the restaurant are extraordinary.

This interview took place a year before his passing, in September 2020.

JOHN HUDSON WHITE: What are some of your favorite pieces from your own collection?

FRANCO MARIA RICCI...

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