The continuing search for author & artist, Baron Avro Manhattan (1914-90).

Over a number of years I’ve researched the life of Italian born author & artist Baron Avro Manhattan, who spent his last years living in a terraced house in my hometown of South Shields. In 2018 a short documentary ‘Secrets & Lies’ was produced focusing on what I’ve found about his life so far. The link is at the end of this post.

Avro was originally called Theophile Lucifer Gardini, the name change is looked at in post #2. Looking for Lucifer #3 includes research used to script a second documentary about this fascinating character.

Lately I’ve come across some of his books and art being sold on EBay which includes a 1947 edition of ‘The Catholic Church Against the Twentieth Century’. The book is up for sale from Liberty Collectibles on Merseyside. I got in touch with Sean at Liberty and asked if he had more information about the book.

‘I have a number of these books for sale. I discovered them during a house clearance at Neston on the Wirral. The deceased owner was an avid collector of religious books, he had over 1,000, and had multiple copies of this book. I have sold some of them. They all appear to be unread as they are in excellent structural condition with some minor foxing to the edges of the pages. All still have their dust jacket but some of these have minor tears from storage and handling’.

Also for sale on EBay is a watercolour of a skeleton put up for sale from Planet Antiques based in Shipley, Derbyshire. I got in touch and asked if they had more information about the painting. Manager of the antique firm, Michelle Edge, replied…

‘We bought the painting from an auction house local to us. As antique dealers it was something that just took my partners eye and something he loves. I can’t really tell you an awful lot more than that really. We researched the artist for the listing and he does indeed sound very interesting.

Superb watercolour, unframed, depicts a sitting skeleton which will appeal to a range of collectors, a fantastic painting done by a talented hand’.

If you have any information about Italian born artist & author Baron Avro Manhattan (1914-90) please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Link to documentary:

The Life of Baron Avro Manhattan – SECRETS & LIES – documentary (Alikivi,12 mins 2018). – YouTube

Gary Alikivi  April 2021