Signed; Giovanni Chiaramonte - Giardini e paesaggi - 1983

Exceptionally signed copy by Giovanni Chiaramonte (1948 – 2023) on the title page, unavailable in signed copies and extremely rare in unsigned copies (only two copies at €190 and €250 …). 72 pages and 54 photographs, mainly in color, full-page plates with texts by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and Giovanni Chiaramonte. Illustrated soft cover. Copy in excellent condition.

This book gathers photographs taken by Giovanni Chiaramonte in the early 1980s and was printed in January 1983. It comprises a first part that gathers black-and-white photographs under the title “Gardens of Sicily” (as his father Giovanni Chiaramonte is Sicilian) and a second part of color photographs under the title “Italian Landscape.” Only the photographs in this second part are the subject of precise localization and dating on one of the book’s initial pages. The first part, “Gardens of Sicily,” gives the book an autobiographical dimension, Sicily representing for Giovanni Chiaramonte a mythical land of youth and memory that would later be decisive for the exploration of the Italian landscape.

Giovanni Chiaramonte, one of the major representatives of Italian photography of the past fifty years, was born in Varese in Northern Italy to Sicilian parents and began photographing in the late 1960s. Deeply influenced by the theological and aesthetic tradition of the Eastern Church, he shares with Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky the theme of the relationship between place and destiny in Western civilization. In 1978 he founded with Luigi Ghirri the editorial cooperative “Punto e Virgola” and later directed the Jaca Book collection. In 1984 he took part with other prestigious photographers in the project “Viaggio in Italia” (Voyage in Italy) conceived by Luigi Ghirri and two years later in the collective work “Esplorazioni sulla via Emilia.” Numerous exhibitions of his works have been organized in various countries, and he has published many photography books.

From November 10, 2024 to February 9, 2025, a large posthumous retrospective of Giovanni Chiaramonte’s photographic work gathering 400 works was organized at the City Museum of Parma and led to the publication of an important monograph, published by Electa Editions. Parallel to this, a museum in Milan organized from November 16, 2024 to February 9, 2025 the exhibition Realismo Infinito, presenting 40 images on the different ways of perceiving the landscape, which led to the edition of a book of the same title.

Book from my personal collection, in excellent condition (like new), kept with the greatest care. Very effective protected shipping and international postal tracking guaranteed. In case of multiple purchases, there is the possibility of combined shipping with a refund of any excess postage paid via Paypal.

0,375 kg. excluding packaging