Franco Tondo, Il giardino delle sculture scomparse / The garden with disappeared sculptures

this image and the next one as on Google Streetview

The image above, taken in March 2009, shows what a sculpture garden in Italy looked like as seen from the street.

The image below, taken somet ten years later, in April 2019, shows the same setting, but all sculptures have disappeared. 

Franco Tondo's lost sculptures

The garden with disappeared sculptures, as the site could be called today, was located in the hamlet of Dragoni, part of the municipality of Lequile, a town of about 8,200 inhabitants in the province of Lecce (Apulia region) in the far southeast of Italy.

The terrain on which the sculptures were situated and where Franco Tondo's house also stood, lies along a public road and is separated from it by such a low fence that Tondo's creations could be seen (and photographed) from the road. 

The terrain has now partly become a vegetable garden.

this image and the next four by Filippo Montinari as on Facebook

Virtually no biographical information is available about Franco Tondo. 

His name and the year 1995 have been added to the basis of one of the sculptures. This information makes it clear that the sculptures were made halfway through the last decade of the previous century.

Because the house now has a different owner, it is also clear that Franco Tondo has since died, but how old he was at the time is unknown

Information about the nature of the sculptures that enriched this art environment is actually only available thanks to Filippo Montinari, who took photographs of them, which he published on Facebook (see documentation).

The sculptures that comprise the art environment are about five meters high and what they depict is partly clearly recognizable.

This concerns in particular the group comprising Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, lying in the manger.

In that group there was also an angel, who held a star, while at the foot of the manger lay a lamb.

Reasoning from the scene with the birth of the baby Jesus, other sculptures can be interpreted as possibly the three Wise Men from the East and others perhaps as the shepherds who stayed in the fields in the vicinity of the stable where Jesus was born.

The sculpture garden also included a piece of land transformed into a large mosaic. This mosaic appears to depict a baptismal font, next to which are two figures, one of whom is making an offering.

A section of the mosaic could also depict a freak and some comets.

Documentation

* Series of pictures of the site (August 2024) by Fillipo Montinari on Facebook

* Article (March 2025) by Giada Carraro on her website Bric-á-Brac Italia

Franco Tondo

The garden with disappeared sculptures

24 Via Solano Li Belli

Lequile, dept of Lecce, region Apulia, Italy

could be seen from the road

Google Streetview

Szczepan Mucha, Udekorowane wnętrze i zewnętrze / Decorated interior and exterior

all images courtesy of Andrzej Kwasiborski and Znalezienie

The row of wooden sculptures in the image above was for many years part of an art environment in a small village in the Sieradz region of Poland.

The site had an outdoor space enclosed by a series of interconnected wooden sculptures and an interior decorated with sculptures, a coherent creation that is now part of the regional ethnographic museum.

Life and works

This art environment was created by Szczepan Mucha (1908--1983), who was born in the Polish village of Stępień. 

Once grown up, he worked first as a woodcutter and later as a forest ranger's assistant. He lived in the small hamlet of Szale near Klonoa, in a farm-like house with a workshop and a large outdoor area.

While living there he had a painful experience that affected the way he dealt with the world. He was accused by neighbors of stealing wood, which led to an ordeal in which he was convicted and had to spend a time in prison.

Szczepan Mucha already liked to be alone and preferred working in the forest to being in the company of people, but after this profound experience he limited his contact with the outside world to a minimum

Later in life, in in the late 1950s when he was in his early 50s, he started making sculptures.

The surrounding images give an impression of the nature of his creations. 

Working with simple tools such as a saw, an axe, a knife and a self-made chisel, he mainly made small-scale depictions in dark colours, portraying all kinds of people.

In 1972 his work was discovered by Zofia Neymanowa, an art historian and museologist of the same generation as Mucha and director of a museum in Sieradz, the capital of the department where Mucha lived. 

The meeting with Zofia led to Mucha's development in the further 1970s into a valued folk artist. The recognition as an artist that Mucha received gave him great satisfaction and was proof to him that he was not the bad man as seen by his neighbors.

He now also went out, took part in competitions and exhibitions and sold his works to museums and private collections.

 A decorated fencing in the exterior

A special element of Mucha's art environment is the way in which the fencing of the outdoor space has taken shape.

The images below show that the top of each of the vertical planks that form the enclosure, has the shape of a human head.

It is not difficult to see that such a palisade also expresses a deep separation between Mucha's world and that of his unfriendly neighbours.

The period in which Szczepan Mucha actively came out with his creative work and was a valued non-professional artist was between 1972 and 1982.

He died in 1983.

In the museum world of the Polish city of Sieradz, interest had already arisen in safeguarding the artistic legacy of Szczepan Muscha. 

This idea was actually realized when an open-air museum was opened in the 1980s and between 1987 and 1991 the interior of Mucha's house and the processed planks of the fence of the outdoor area, were either rebuilt in or moved to the museum.

Documenation

* Entry on Facebook by Andrzej Kwasiborski, with a variety of photos

* Article on Polish website Pola Neis, with a variety of photos

* Series of photos on the Facebook account of Poland Presents

Video

* Video by Edward Konieczvy (2012, YouTube, 5'47") that shows footage of a visit to the open-air museum by members of the Department of Tourism and Ecology of the University of the Third Age in Ostrów, Poland

Szczepan Mucha

Decorated interior and exterior

Village of Szale, dept Sieradz, region Lodz, Poland

currently replaced to/replicated in:

Sieradz Ethnographic Park

Google Streetvie

Anonymous couple, Maison aux Coquillages / Shell House

this image as on a leaflet from the municipality
announcing the sale of the house

Port-Joinville is a small town of about 2000 inhabitants on the north side of the French island of Ile d'Yeu, situated opposite the French west coast and part of the department of Vendée. 

It has the most important port of the island, also because most ferries arrive or depart there. 

The Shell House

In this port town, located along the rue de la Plage, a road leading to the beach, there is a house decorated with shells, as pictured above.

The house was built after the First World War, a time when the island, particularly for its beaches, was beginning to develop as a tourist destination and seaside resort. 

The shells and pebbles were attached to the walls by the couple who occupied the newly built house at the time. Their name is not mentioned in the available documentation. However, their nickname has become known, namely les Gugus, a term used in French to indicate characters considered as grotesque or comic.

his photo (May 2021) by Didier B as on
Google Streetview

Recent developments 

In early 2021, when the municipality was considering renovating the area near the house, including the construction of a parking lot for beach visitors, residents of Port-Joinville feared that the house, still decorated with shells and pebbles, would have to disappear.

However, this was not the case. On the contrary, the municipality, now owner of the building which was empty at the time, renovated it and in early 2025 put it up for sale.

Documentation

* Article (February 2022) in newspaper Ouest-France

* Article (December 2023) in newspaper le Courier Vendéen

Anonymous couple

Maison aux coquillages

32 rue de la Plage.

Port-Joinville, l'Ile-d'Yeu, dept Vendée,, region Pays de la Loire, France

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Paul Velay, Jardin décoré / Decorated garden

unless stated otherwise images (2025) are courtesy of Tipeek Photos

In the centre of Vismes, a small village with 475 inhabitants (2020), located in the Somme department in the Hauts-de-France region, there is a house, now uninhabited, whose walls and the garden along the street were decorated in former years.

Life and works

This art environment was created by Paul Velay who was born in Vismes on February 15, 1904 and died, also in Vismes, on March 8, 1984.

There is no information about the job or jobs he had.

It is also not clear when he started decorating the garden and the exterior of the house. However, it could be that he began when he retired, as is the case with many other non-professional artists. This would mean that he started his decorative project in the 1960s.

another  view of the fence along the street

After Velay's death, a family member probably lived in the house until around the turn of the century. 

After that, the house, which was inherited by a granddaughter, remained uninhabited because she did not want to sell or rent the house. She didn't arrange any maintenance also.

The current status of the decorations

As can be seen in the image at the very top and the one directly above, the garden in front of the house is separated from the street by a fence decorated with triangular mosaics on top and creations depicting butterflies below. 

These decorations appear to be in reasonably good condition.

This does not apply to the garden, however.

For example, from the fence to the house there is a path formed by colorful pieces of stone and glass, as can be seen in the image above, where the decoration only appears after the overlying vegetation has been removed.

There was also a small castle with a small moat, as can be seen in a photo below from the year 2000, which is now completely overgrown with greenery.

this image (2000) and the next two (2000/2015)
by Laurent Jacqui

A hunter, positioned in front of a decorated wall, is also unlucky. In 2000 he stands proudly in a colorful flowerbed, in 2015 that flowerbed is overgrown and the roof has collapsed.

The front of the house is decorated by Paul Velay over the entire width with colorful frescoes, depicting all kinds of scenes.

The image below shows two people at a table with a meal. The bouquet next to the entrance door that welcomes visitors also still looks good.

This also applies to the wall decoration below, respectively a farmer with his horse ploughing and a hunter with his dog.

The walls of the buildings surrounding the garden generally still look solid, but Google Streetview shows that, for example, the roof of the building on the right side of the garden is quite badly damaged.

It is therefore doubtful whether there are people or institutions willing to undertake a restoration.

Documentation

* Article (2015) by Laurent Jacqui on his website Les beaux dimanches 

* Article (2025) on the website Tipeek Photos

Paul Velay
Decorated garden

8 rue du Moulin
80140 Vismes, dept Somme, region Hauts-de-France, France

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Paul Roger, Maison en coquille / Shell house

image as on Google Streetview

Along the northern French west coast, directly south of the large port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, lies Le Portel, a municipality with approximately 8,800 inhabitants (January 2022).

South of the city, parallel to the coast, there is the Rue de Cap, a rural street with at number 36 a house that has a special allure, because it has been abundantly decorated with shells, both inside and outside.

As can be seen in the image above, the house is separated from the road by an elongated shell decorated wall.

image as on website waymarking

Life and works

The shell decorations were added by Paul Roger (1923-2020), when he was a resident of the house. The project began in 1984, when he had just retired.

That year he got a visit from a brother-in-law. When they were walking on the beach they saw all kinds of shells lying around and his brother-in-law suggested that Roger could do something with these items in terms of decorating his home.

Roger thought that this was a bit crazy, but still worth a try, and so he got to work.

image as on Google Streetview

Crazy or not, the project would take ten years. It was also quite a job because Paul Roger sorted the tens of thousands shells by size and by color, pink, gray, or white. The large shells formed the frames and the small ones were glued inside the frames.

Various parts of the interior of the house have been also decorated with shells. This article does not have any images of the interior, but the video below includes views of various places inside the house.

After Paul Roger died in 2020 the house was sold. The new owners kept the decorations on the outside walls, but probably removed the decorations in the interior.

 

Documentation

* Article (undated) on website Waymarking

*Article (August 2014) in French magazine France Infor, includes a video (2 minutes)

Video

* Video (2014) in magazine France Info referred above

Paul Roger

Maison en coquillages

36 rue du Cap

62480 Le Portel, dept Pas-de-Calais, region Hauts-de-France, France

can be seen from the street

Google Streetview

Christine Fayon, Maison d'artiste décorée / The artist's decorated house

all images courtesy of Sophie Lepetit,
from her weblog

The image above, as well as the others in this post, show an interior decorated with a composition of all sorts of different small piles or hung objects, which can be seen as colorful spaces inside that together give shape to an art environment.

Life and works

This style of decoration is characteristic of the house of Christina Fayon, who was born in 1956 in Paris, where her parents worked as leather workers in a suburb.

Inspired by her parents, Christine started working with leather at a very young age. She was only three years old when she began making small creations, initially of course very simple ones, such as small leather bags that could carry her dolls.

As she grew older she also started making her own clothes.

Her preference for making her own clothes speaks to her need to live her life as she sees fit. 

For example, in 1979, when she was in her early twenties, she decided to travel to Central America, knowing when she would leave, but not setting a date for her return to France.

She loved this freedom to come and go, to meet the unknown and herself.

And then, during that first trip she experienced a great need in herself to feel and absorb everything around her, habits, encounters, experiences, colors. This experience would also become the basis from which her artistry would develop.

And so it may very well be that this experience also made her decide to continue her life as an artist.

 

In any case, when she went to live independently, she made sure that the house she moved into in the Aveyron department in the south of France, also offered the opportunity to set up a studio.

When furnishing her own home, another special characteristic emerged. She turned out to be a master in the art of collecting all kinds of things with which she could surround herself and express her artistic nature.

Gradually, the interior of her home not only became a multi-coloured collection of various independent ensembles composed of all kinds of objects. Beautiful to look at, these small universes also inspired her to make new creations and guided her in her further career.

That career went well. 

In her creations of textile paintings and textile jewellery, but also dolls, travel booklets, and postal art, she arranged a multitude of colourful fabrics in such a way that a coherent, inspiring composition emerged, a way of working that she gradually refined more and more.

During twenty years she also made a varied collection of leather bags.

The video below, made in 2020, shows Christine Fayon creatively active when she was in her early 60s and could look back on a life in which she travelled to areas in Asia and India and participated in many exhibitions of her creations, especially in France but also in Morocco.

A beautiful basis for further developments.

Documentation

* Article (March 2025) on the weblog of Sophie Lepetit, with a variety of images

* Weblog  Imbroglios textiles (Textile Tangles) by Christina Fayon (includes an overview of exhibitions in which she participated)

* Facebook

* Instagram, with a variety of images

* Series of photos on Facebook (September 2024) taken by Sophie Lepetit, showing material used and creations made by Christina Fayon

Video

* Video Un jour dans l'atelier de Christina Fayon (2020, 16'13", Vimeo) by Viallat Hélène

 

Christine Fayon

The artist's decorated house 

located in the dept Aveyron, region Occitanie, France

exact place of residence not published here

Tibor Türk Túri, Hagyományos viseletek babamúzeuma / Doll Museum for Traditional Costumes

pictures are screenprints from the video
referred to in the documentation

 

The Hungarian city of Keszthely with about 20,000 inhabitants is located on the western tip of the large, elongated Lake Balato, located southwest of Budapest.

 It is a city that attracts holidaymakers and includes various cultural attractions, such as one of the largest puppet museums in Eastern Europe-

Life and works

This museum was founded by Tibor Türk Túri, who was born in Budapest in May 1954.

He studied at the university in Nyíregyháza and then worked first as a business engineer and later as a teacher and tutor. He loved drawing and painting and was very interested in ethnography.

In the 1980s he entered the field of sculpture, creating a variety of all kinds of sculptures.

His interest in ethnography led him to put together a collection of various dolls in specific costumes, which in turn led to the establishment of the Doll Museum for Traditional Costume. 

The museum, which opened in 1999, was housed in a building in Keszthely that used to be a granary and already existed in the middle of the 19th century.

The building contains larch beams with a length of 14 meters, which are even older and possibly date from the time of the Rákóczi, the first war of independence (1703-1711) that was fought in Hungary against the Habsburg rule.

The walls of the building also include unplastered parts of the walls of an old castle in Hungary dating from the time of Roman rule.

The main collection of the museum includes about five hundred dolls showing the traditional costumes worn by the bourgeois inhabitants of Hungary in the past.

There is also a collection of 120 dolls with Transylvanian costumes displayed in two separate showcases.

The heads, hands and feet of the dolls are usually made of ceramic, the rest is made of textile.

The museum management is actively pursuing a policy of adding dolls to the collection.

This applies, for example, to the collection from Transylvania, which was formed by organising a competition via a children's magazine to see who could send in the most beautiful regional costumes. 

This action led to a very good result, as very valuable material was received, which was assessed by a jury of ethnographers.

Since in Hungary folk traditions are also gradually disappearing, the museum is just in time to develop activities that will help preserve dolls in traditional clothing by including them in the museum framework.

So, the museum is also undertaking similar actions in collecting dolls, aimed at other areas of Hungary.

The museum does not only contain dolls with traditional costumes that are related to the bourgeoisie.

A contribution was also received from a family that includes all kinds of everyday clothing made of old linen and hemp, about 150 years old. 

For example, the clothing of a cleaning woman wearing small wooden slippers and carrying a bucket with a mop. Or a grandmother sitting in front of the stove dressed in simple, poor clothing.

The third floor of the museum includes replicas of various famous buildings in Hungary. 

A special creation is a replica of the Hungarian Parliament building, the so-called Snail Parliament, made by Ilona Miskei, born in 1920, who from 1975 onwards incorporated 4.5 million seasnail shells into the building over a period of 14 years.

Documentation

* Website of the museum

* Facebook, with a variety of images

* Article on website West-Balaton

* Article on Wikipedia about the Snail Parliament

Video 

* Video (YouTube, 2020, 2"15") by Keszthelyi Televízió

Tibor Türk Túri

Doll Museum

Kossuth Lajos u. 11.,

Keszthely, Hungary

visitors welcome

Google Streetview