For Italy and the whole world, Sergio Gnutti was a great industrialist, at the head of a group with 400 employees, still run as a family business that from generation to generation has been able to conquer an important place in the field of aluminum processing.
For his friends in Malindi, for many years, Sergio was above all an affable, elegant presence who showed up every year and, with an inner serenity that enlightened everyone, animated dinners and meetings by the sea and spoke with pleasure about art, one of the passions and highest motives of his life, which he has always shared with his wife Antonella.
That's how I met them, many years ago, in their splendid residence overlooking the ocean in Silversand, a sort of art and publication gallery that not only showed their love for Africa and its origins, but extended to another great passion, that of archaeological excavations in the Middle East. Particularly in the Indus Valley and also in Pakistan, sponsoring research and trying to save a priceless historical heritage that the Taliban are inexorably wiping out.
Behind every beautiful artistic initiative in Malindi, Sergio and Antonella were always there. From the biennials organized by Sarenco, which they always supported, particularly the third one, to every deserving artist whose works they bought, supporting the continuation of their artistic production. He believed in a Malindi as the center of East African culture, a fulcrum of beauty and recovery of the civilization that was formed here, giving inspiration to talents from all over the world.
People like Sergio Gnutti should be remembered and celebrated as one of the many immortal works of art that he wanted and knew how to surround himself with in life, not for the sake of appearances or snobbery, but with passion, knowledge of the cause and the pleasure of disclosure.
He left us at only 73 years old after a battle against an incurable disease. We will miss him.
To Antonella and her children Rebecca and Francesco the embrace of Malindikenya.net