Farewell to photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin, a great witness to Italy in black and white.

Gianni Berengo Gardin , one of the greatest Italian photographers of the twentieth century, has died at the age of 94 in Genoa. His gaze spanned seven decades of history, capturing the country's visual memory in black and white.

Born in Santa Margherita Ligure (Genoa) on October 10, 1930 , he considered Venice his true hometown: there he studied and took his first steps with a camera, a camera he would never leave. With over two million negatives, more than 260 published books, over 360 solo exhibitions worldwide, and a career recognized by international awards, Berengo Gardin was much more than a photographer: he was an ethical witness, a poet of reality, a discreet yet tireless observer of a changing Italy.

Berengo Gardin liked to call himself "an artisan," not an artist. He detested the idea of photography as an aestheticizing art form, always preferring civic engagement to the pursuit of a personal style: "My work is not artistic, but social and civil. I don't want to interpret, I want to tell." His gaze always focused on humanity: in its daily gestures, at work, in moments of intimacy, and in places of discomfort.

The most famous works

From postwar rural Italy to the surge of modernization, from the life of the gypsies to the industrial world, from the urban outskirts to mental institutions, the latter being the field in which he produced the most powerful reportage of his career. In 1969, together with Carla Cerati and under the guidance of Franco Basaglia, he published 'Morire di classe' (Einaudi), a book that revealed for the first time the inhumane conditions of Italian mental institutions . It was a silent cry, made up of stark and cruel images, which shook the country and contributed to the cultural battle that would lead, in 1978, to the Basaglia Law. "We only photographed with the patients' consent," he said. "But we didn't want to show the illness, but rather the condition." This was the hallmark of his work: not shock, but awareness.

After living in Venice, Rome, Lugano, Paris, and finally Milan, where he settled in 1965, Berengo Gardin began a long career as a professional reportage photographer, which led him to collaborate with the most important Italian and international publications, including 'Domus', 'L'Espresso', 'Time', 'Stern', and 'Le Figaro', but above all to devote himself to the form he loved most: the photobook.

After initially working as an editor for aviation magazines, he discovered photography by reading volumes on the American Farm Security Administration and books by Eugene Smith and Dorothea Lange. In his early twenties, he joined the famous photography club 'La Gondola' and was invited by Italo Zannier to join the Gruppo Friulano per una Nuova Fotografia. He later founded the photography group 'Il Ponte' with his friends. His amateur photography achieved great success, and many of his shots were published in major exhibition catalogues and specialized magazines around the world. His official debut came in 1954 in the pages of the weekly 'Il Mondo', edited by Mario Pannunzio, with whom he collaborated until 1965. From there, he began a career that led him to work with prestigious organizations such as the Touring Club Italiano (1966-1983), the Istituto Geografico De Agostini, and companies that were symbols of Italian industry, from Olivetti to Fiat, from Alfa Romeo to IBM.

Berengo Gardin's photography is also a great urban and landscape narrative; it documents work and architecture. Key works include 'Gypsies in Palermo', 'India in Villages', photographs of Renzo Piano's construction sites (from 1979 to 2012), and his commitment to combating large ships in the Venice lagoon, a project exhibited in collaboration with the FAI in Milan and Venice in 2014 and 2015. His Venice remains a constant: he photographed it throughout his life, with an ever-participating and ever-critical gaze. His first book, 'Venise des Saisons' (1965), was a tribute to his Venice: a non-touristy, intimate, everyday city made up of workers, children at play, artisans, fog, and silence.

The awards

Berengo Gardin was the most internationally recognized and awarded Italian photographer. In 1972, Modern Photography listed him among the "32 World's Top Photographers," and in 1982, art historian Ernst Gombrich cited him as the only photographer in his "Image and the Eye: Further Studies on the Psychology of Pictorial Representation" (Einaudi). In 2008, he received the Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in New York, a recognition previously bestowed upon such giants as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, and Elliott Erwitt; in 2009, the University of Milan awarded him an honorary degree in the History of Art Criticism; in 2014, he received the Kapuściński Prize for reportage, and in 2017, he was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame.

In 1975, Bill Brandt selected him for the exhibition 'Twentieth Century Landscape Photographs' at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2003, he was among the 80 photographers selected for the exhibition "Les choix d'Henri Cartier-Bresson." Among over 360 solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad, Berengo Gardin has participated in Photokina in Cologne, the Montreal Expo in 1967 and the Milan Expo in 2015, the Venice Biennale, and the famous exhibition 'The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-1968' at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1994. Among his most recent solo exhibitions, 'Vera fotografia. Reportage, images, encounters' at the PalaExpo in Rome, which retraced his long career through his major reportages and over 250 photographs, and in 2022 the large retrospective 'The eye as a profession' at the Maxxi in Rome.

His photographs are held in the world's most prestigious museums and cultural institutions, including the New York Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Center for Communication Studies and Archives at the University of Parma, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, the UN Headquarters in New York, Photokina Cologne, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art and Aesthetics in Beijing, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the MAXXI in Rome, and the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica. His archive—over two million photographs—is now managed by the Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia, which continues to promote his work and legacy.

Berengo Gardin photographed stolen kisses, graveyards, crowded trains, workers, women ("First comes the Leica, then the women, then the ice cream," he joked), architecture, children, Roma, and the elderly. Always with a steady, empathetic, and ironic gaze, never cynical. Many have called him the "Italian Cartier-Bresson," but he himself preferred another definition: "I am the Italian Willy Ronis. But I proudly keep a dedication from Cartier-Bresson: 'To Gianni Berengo Gardin with sympathy and admiration.' To have his admiration means one can die in peace." (by Paolo Martini)

Giuli: "An undisputed master and authentic explorer"

"With Gianni Berengo Gardin, we have lost an undisputed master of photography. A true explorer who captured humanity and nature from every corner of the globe. His gaze illuminated the history of the twentieth century," said the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli , commenting on the news of the great photographer's death.