Anthony Riccio grew up in a working class neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, where you could hear the steady hum of the local American Steel and Wire factory all the way into the backyard gardens of the local Italian immigrants.
Curious about his roots, and inspired by the stories his grandparents told him of southern Italy, Anthony returned to their villages in Campania in the early 1970s, photographing the old-world way of life his grandparents had left behind at the turn of the century.
After graduating from Providence College in 1974, Anthony was awarded the “Florentine Fellowship” from Syracuse University for his master’s degree in Renaissance Art History in Florence, Italy.
From 1978 to 1984, Anthony ran the North End Senior Citizen Center in Boston’s historic North End where he recorded the life stories of elderly Italian immigrants and photographed them in everyday life in their cold water flats, during religious processions, as they tended their rooftop gardens, and as they made wine in their cellars. This research became his first book in 1998, “Portrait of an Italian American Neighborhood: The North End of Boston”— it was made into a second edition by Globe Pequot Press in 2006.
In 2006 “he wrote “The Italian American Experience in New Haven: Images and Oral Histories,” based on the stories of New Haven’s elderly Italian Americans, published by State University of New York Press.
In 2009, Anthony traveled to Sant Agata de’ Goti in the Campania region of southern Italy to research and write a cook book “Cook- ing with Chef Silvio: Stories and Authentic Recipes of Campania.” The cook book illustrates the social history and culture of Campa- nia through its unique cuisine.
In 2012, Anthony Riccio’s photographs were exhibited in America and Italy at the Bellarmine Museum of Art at Fairfield University. and in Ravello, Italy where it is on permanent display.
In 2014 he wrote “Farms, Factories and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut,” a book that tells the unknown story of Italian American women of Connecticut who tell their life stories in their own words for the first time.
Anthony’s photographs were recently featured with Italian artists from all over the world at the Italian American Museum in Los Angeles, in an exhibit “Italianità: Artists of the Italian Diaspora Reflect on History and Identity.”
Anthony is currently writing a new book, “Stories, Streets and Saints: The North End of Boston,” based on oral history interviews with Italian elders of the North End from the early 1980s. It will be published by SUNY Press.
