Ferdinando Scianna - Marpessa - 1993-1993

Marpessa
Ferdinando Scianna
Leonardi Editori, 1993 — First edition
An important photographic monograph that documents one of Ferdinando Scianna's most well-known and recognizable projects, dedicated to Marpessa Hennink, an iconic figure in international fashion between the late 1980s and the early 1990s.
Published in 1993 by Leonardi Editori in its first edition, Marpessa represents an emblematic example of how Scianna has managed to redefine the language of fashion photography, moving away from purely commercial aesthetics to build a personal, intimate, and strongly auteurial photographic narrative. The images do not merely celebrate the beauty of the model, but establish a deep visual dialogue between photographer and subject, founded on trust, presence, and storytelling.
The volume is entirely characterized by Scianna's unmistakable black-and-white, a stylistic signature that gives the images a timeless tone and places them fully within the tradition of great author photography. Marpessa thus sits halfway between portrait, fashion, and humanist photography, making it a reference title both in the author's body of work and in the history of contemporary Italian photography.