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Photographs: ITALIAN ICONS

Wednesday 18 June 2025, 04:00 PM • Milan

22

Giuseppe Cavalli

(1904 - 1961)

Senigallia (Ancona), 1950

Artist's Resale Right

Estimate

€ 4.000 - 5.000

Sold

€ 3.354

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Vintage gelatin silver print
cm 35,8 x 28,4 | 14.1 x 11.2 in.
Signed and titled in black ink on the verso
Framed
Giuseppe Cavalli (Lucera, Foggia 1904 – Senigallia, Ancona 1961) was born into a family of landowners and, although he graduated in law, he preferred to devote himself to the world of art following in the footsteps of his twin brother Emanuele, an successful painter. A very cultured man, he developed in practice as well as in theory a type of photography that was as far away from pictorialism as from the hated fascist emphasis. In 1947, he founded the photographic group La Bussola in Milan, for which he drew up the manifesto that referred to Croce's aesthetics, and in 1954, in Senigallia, where he had moved, the Gruppo Misa. 

The important axiom is that in art the subject is of no importance, what counts is that the work has reached the sky of art: whether it is beautiful or not’ wrote Cavalli in the Manifesto of the Compass, and these words can guide us in reading these two images that are symptomatic of his choices. In the still life, the lightness of the feather prevails, juxtaposed with the physicality of the glass vase, elements united by the fact that they draw two delicate shadows in the background. In the landscape, on the other hand, it is the horizontal lines that occupy the space and draw a deliberate harmony. In both cases, the idea of the predominance of form over subject, of signifier over signified, is confirmed. We are also in front of two superb examples of how to make high key prints, that is, making light tones prevail in all their nuances. 

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