Robert Hawthorn Kitson was born into a wealthy family, the eldest son of John Hawthorn Kitson and Jessie Ellershaw. His grandfather James Kitson founded locomotive engineering firm Kitson and Company. His uncle was James Kitson, 1st Baron Airedale. His sister was the first female Lord Mayor of Leeds, Jessie Kitson. He studied at Shrewsbury School and then went up to Trinity College to study Natural Sciences in 1895. In the following year Robert was chosen to receive a Harkness Scholarship and mostly concentrated on geological studies. At Cambridge he befriended Cecil Arthur Hunt. Kitson suffered from rheumatic fever and was advised to spend the winters out of England, in a sunnier climate. He Kitson became an artist, learning watercolour painting on sketching tours with Sir Alfred East and Sir Frank Brangwyn. From 1900 he was an active member of the Leeds Fine Arts Club.
Life in Sicily
After his father's death in 1899 Kitson moved to Sicily where he designed and built a villa with views of Mount Etna - Casa Cuseni. Before permanently settling in Taormina, Robert Kitson spent a lot of time in Venice, where he had his own regular gondolier. He also visited Naples and Ravello with his family and friends from Cambridge. His selection of Taormina was based on the city being on the rise a popular winter resort for European aristocracy. Kitson was also familiar with Wilhelm von Gloeden works made in Taormina. He owned von Gloeden's small collection of photographs of ephebes and heads of handsome Arab youths. Kitson also had long friendship with Bobbie Pratt-Barlow, a distant relative who settled in the Villa Rosa just below Casa Cuseni. Kitson was also travelling extensively around Europe by train and took long ship trips to North Africa, Egypt, Istanbul and once to Ceylon and India. Robert Kitson was one of Wilhelm von Gloeden's studio clients. He and his visitors took their films to be developed and printed at von Gloeden's studio. Brangwyn writes in his letters that Kitson and von Gloeden were good friends before the Great War. One of Kitson's sketchbooks has a large group of sketches of young men, clothed as if Arabs and taken after von Gloeden's models. Von Gloeden was photographing Kitson's handsome Taorminese lover, making his portraits and nudes. People in Taormina called him the "crazy English" for his look. He was tall and thin with blue eyes and moustache and dressed with flamboyance with his colourful jackets. Robert Kitson lived on in Casa Cuseni until he was forced to leave Italy and come back to England when World War II reached Italy and Sicily became a battleground.
When Sicily fell, Robert was regularly communicating with his friends left there. He had given the allies information on Sicily and tried, without success, to save the ancient bridge over the Alcantara river from destruction. He was happy to find out that Casa Cuseni survived the war and this spurred on his attempts to get home somehow. Mayor of Taormina requested English Authorities for Kitson's return as President of the local Building Commission on 7 March 1945. His presence was regarded as essential to the reconstruction of the town, since it was in ruins after the disastrous bombardment of 9 July 1943. He returned to Sicily by the end of January 1946. In summer 1947, Kitson returned to his prewar custom of spending the part of the summer with family and friends in England. He flew back to Italy early in September, stopping in Rome. He returned to Taormina on 15 September 1947. He died in Casa Cuseni two days after coming back on 17 September 1947. Robert Kitson was buried in the non-catholic cemetery in Taormina in the presence of his Sicilian friends, some English expatriates and the Deputy British Consul in Sicily. . Carlo is holding a painting of himself by Frank Brangwyn
Personal life
Robert Kitson realized he was homosexual at an early age. He was able to live, if not openly yet freely, in Taormina, surrounded by a community of artists and aristocrats. Charles Leslie writes that Kitson had a brief romantic relationship with Frank Brangwyn, whom he later employed for decoration of his Taorminese villa. In Taormina, his longtime companion was the handsome Sicilian boy Carlo Siligato. A series of photographs of Carlo by Vincenzo Galdi survives.
Casa Cuseni
When Kitson first went to Taormina in 1898, he decided to build a house there, 800 feet above the sea. There he constructed his villa in the classical style, using local stones, marble, wood and terracotta. Kitson commissioned his friend Frank Brangwyn to create the dining-room. Brangwyn designed the furniture and painted frescos in the dining-room. When Robert Hawthorn Kitson died in 1947, the villa was inherited by his niece Daphne Phelps, who maintained and ran it till her death in 2005. Her memoir, A House in Sicily, has charmed many readers. The villa has been declared an Italian National Monument and hosts a museum of fine art and a small hotel.
Robert Hawthorn Kitson works are in Victoria and Albert Museum, Leeds University library, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. The most important collection of watercolours by Robert Hawthorn Kitson is now at Casa Cuseni, City-Museum of Taormina.
