Biography - Bombolo

1947		Bombolo, originally Norbert Graubner, was born in Weinbach near the River Lahn.
1962-65		Left family home and village to begin apprenticeship as chef.
1965-70		Worked and travelled as a chef on ships of the Holland America Line, visiting North and Central America, Polynesia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
1970-83		Opened first French restaurant, ‘La Bonne Auberge’ in Koenigstein/Ts. Then came the Hard Rock Café and Waikiki Bar in Frankfurt. At the top of his career, he changed his life from one day to the next and moved to Mallorca to restore a ruined house in S’Arraco.
1984		Began a total rebuild of the 1905 Pilot Cutter `Fair Dawn’, once belonging to Earnest Hemingway. She has now found a home at the Museum Port of Flensburg.
1985		Sailed throughout the Danish Islands of the Baltic with his painter friend Volker Meier on his Gaff Schooner `Aurora von Altona’.
1986-87		Visited Hopi and Navajo reservations in the Southwestern United states. Worked for two years in Aspen, Colorado. Met Georgia O’Keefe in Abiquiu and sculptor Alan Houser in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
1988		Travelled to the Island of Maui in Hawaii.
1989		Spent the Summer months between London and the Cornish coast of England.
1991		Retreated to the Zen Monastery Hosshin-ji, under the tutelage of Abbot Harada Sekkei Roshi near Obama-shi, Japan.
1992		1992 Made first Exhibition of paintings.
1993		Travelled with Harada Sekkei Roshi to Leh, Alchi, Lamayuru and to the Hemis festival in Ladakh, Himalayas, N. India.
1994		Returned to S.W.United States to visit more Indian Reservations.
1995		Film Documentary started - `Safety is an Illusion’.
1996		Returned to Hosshin-ji to finish film.
1997		Showing of `Safety is an Illusion’ by German TV station BR III.
2002		Travelled to Alaska for painting. Went to South America, following in the footsteps of Pablo Neruda. Destinations included Buenos Aries, Santiago de Chile, the Atacama Desert and travelling on a small boat through the Amazon to Manaus.
2003		Publication of `Neruda Blau’ by Prof. Dr. Gabriele Grotze for the National Library of German Poetry, illustrated by Bombolo.
2004-07		Various projects, studies and International exhibitions