The House-Museum is dedicated to Harold Bradley, an African-American artist who founded the historic FolkStudio in the 1960s. A leading figure in the fights for civil rights in America who animated our Eternal City with "alternative" music and an intercultural spirit. American football champion, twice winner of the Superbowl, American actor and musician. Harold Bradley passed away in Rome on 12 April 2021. In the 1960s he founded the historic Trastevere venue frequented among others by Renzo Arbore, Pippo Franco, Walter Veltroni, Giovanna Marini and hosted international artists of the caliber of Bob Dylan.
Here with stubbornness and determination the American artist and singer, married to a German Jewess from Berlin, promoted the intercultural spirit of Rome, encouraging meetings with artists and intellectuals from all over the world, knowledge and comparison between different cultures.
His creation hosted almost all the protagonists of Italian Jazz of the time, from Massimo Urbani to Gegè Munari, from Enrico Pierannunzi to Tullio De Piscopo and Maurizio Giammarco. Many artists who later became famous such as Rino Gaetano and Sergio Caputo, Stefano Rosso and Mimmo Locasciulli, Gianni Togni, Tony Santagata, Jimmy Fontana, not to mention Francesco De Gregori and Antonello Venditti who made their debut here with the their first group called "I Giovani del FolkStudio", a quartet completed by Giorgio Lo Cascio and Ernesto Basignano, the four guys with the guitar and piano on their shoulders who ended up in the first verse of the famous song "Night before exams".
Born in Chicago on 13 October 1929, he would have turned 94 this year and Rome, the city he chose to live in again after twenty years of success which in America saw him as a university professor and television host of cultural programs on the CBS and NBC does not want to miss the opportunity to pay a fitting tribute to this important artist and intellectual who had a profound impact on the Capitoline culture.
The event not to be missed is for next Friday 15 December in the Villino Liberty which hosts his unpublished works of art, including drawings, paintings, collages