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Photographs: ITALIAN ICONS

Wednesday 18 June 2025, 04:00 PM • Milan

5

Gianni Berengo Gardin

(1930)

Vaporetto, 1960

Artist's Resale Right

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€ 1.800 - 2.500

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€ 1.806

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Gelatin silver print, printed in 1970s/1980s
cm 30,3 x 40,4 (cm 23 x 29,5 picture) | 11.9 x 15.9 in. (9.1 x 11.4 in. picture)
Photographer's credit stamp on the verso

Literature

Gianni Berengo Gardin, Venise des saisons, Editions Clairefontaine, Lausanne, 1965Gianni Berengo Gardin: Fotografo 1953-1988, Art&, Udine, 1988Italo Zannier (edited by), Segni di luce, 3 voll., Longo, Ravenna, 1993Gianni Berengo Gardin, Gli anni di Venezia, Federico Motta Editore, Milan, 1994Roberta Valtorta (edited by), Pagine di fotografia italiana 1900-1998, Charta, Milan, 1998Gianni Berengo Gardin (edited by), Gianni Berengo Gardin, Peliti Associati, Rome, 2001Gli anni del Neorealismo, Fiaf, Turin, s.d. [ma 2001]Giovanna Calvenzi (edited by), Italia, Contrasto, Rome, 2003Uliano Lucas (edited by), Storia d'Italia. Annali 20. L'immagine fotografica, Einaudi, Turin, 2004Gianni Berengo Gardin, Contrasto, Rome, 2005Paolo Morello (edited by), Gianni Berengo Gardin: Venezia, Istituto Superiore per la Storia della Fotografia, Palermo, 2006, pl. 51G. Calvenzi (edited by), Italia Inside Out, Contrasto, Milan, 2015, pp. 82-83
Gianni Berengo Gardin (Santa Margherita Ligure, Genoa 1930) joined the La Gondola Club in Venice, spent two years in Paris in contact with Ronis and Doisneau and collaborated with Il Mondo. Supported by Romeo Martinez, he became a professional photographer in 1964, moving to Milan where he began working with T.C.I.. The following year, with Venise san Saisons, he published the first of his three hundred books. Numerous exhibitions all over the world and awards such as the Oskar Barnack, the Lucie Award and an honorary degree from Milan State University. He has always worked with black and white analogue photography with Leica. 

If, in the endless production of a photojournalist like Gianni Berengo Gardin, we wanted to identify the works that made him most famous, the two presented here are the chosen ones. Underlining the great photographer's style, both were made by capturing the fleeting moment with clear rapidity. One day in 1977 in Great Britain he saw a car, a classic, old Morris, parked with its nose facing a beach. Inside, he sees the heads of a couple and immediately realises that the image created curiosity: why are they standing there, what are they saying to each other, what are they going to do? He stands behind them, putting the car in the centre, silhouetted against an almost metaphysical landscape. Even more curious is the story of the photograph taken in Venice: living on the Lido and working in the family shop in the city, he took the vaporetto every day without leaving his trusty Leica behind. Suddenly an image appeared in front of his eyes: he caught the back of a man acting as a screen on which the rear window of the vehicle was projected, multiplying the presence of people crowding the scene. 

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