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Photographs: ITALIAN ICONS

Wednesday 18 June 2025, 04:00 PM • Milan

32

Mario De Biasi

(1923 - 2013)

Domenica d'agosto, Milano, 1949

Artist's Resale Right

Estimate

€ 1.200 - 1.800

Sold

€ 1.677

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Vintage gelatin silver print
cm 23,7 x 18 | 9.4 x 7.1 in.
Photrographer's credit stamp on the verso

Literature

AAVV, NeoRealismo. The new image in Italy 1932-1960, Admira Edizioni, Milan, 2018, cover
Mario De Biasi (Sois, Bolzano 1923 - Milan 2013) began photographing in Germany, where he had been deported during World War II. In 1948 he presented his first solo exhibition at the Circolo Fotografico Milanese, and in 1953 he became a professional working in the staff of the magazine Epoca to which he would remain bound until its closure in 1997 and for which he would publish more than a hundred covers and countless photo shoots making several trips around the world. Extremely versatile, he produced countless exhibitions and published books on a wide variety of subjects. 

Mario De Biasi immediately acquired a personal style that led him to observe reality with curiosity without distinguishing between the great personalities he portrayed - from Brigitte Bardot to Marlene Dietrich - to simple people caught in their spontaneity with the eye of the valuable reporter. It is interesting to note that this ability is already found in "Domenica d’agosto", the shot taken still as an amateur anticipating the gesture of the girl who, to avoid getting wet, enters the puddle with her bicycle and joyfully lifts her legs. A curiosity: the negative of this photograph has been lost. Instead, “Gli italiani si voltano” was made when De Biasi was already a professional: the weekly Bolero Film asked Epoca to borrow him for a report on Moira Orfei in Milan. The shoot begins in Piazza San Babila, and the queue of curious people follow him along Corso Vittorio Emanuele to Piazza del Duomo. Here De Biasi has the idea of shooting the girl from behind wrapped in a tight white dress, silhouetted against the wall of men watching her fascinated. Fifty years later the photograph will be shown at the Guggenheim in New York in an exhibition on Italian art curated by Germano Celant. 

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