Signed; Pepi Merisio - Po - 1973

Exceptionally signed Pepi Merisio (1931 - 2021) on the title page, a signed copy not found in stock. Published in a limited off-market edition of 3,000 copies. 150 pages and 118 black-and-white photographs, some full-page and a few double-page, with text by Gianni Brera. Very beautiful gray cloth binding with the title embossed in white on the cover and back with an illustrated dust jacket. Copy in very good condition.

Published in 1973, this book about the Po River, which runs through northern Italy, is the second published by Pepi Merisio after Terre di Bergamo, and it gathers photographs of a now vanished Italy taken in the 1960s. Some of these images evoke the atmosphere of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film The Cry, which was shot in the same environment and era.

Pepi Merisio (1931–2021), an independent photographer, spent almost his entire life in the Bergamo area, which he explored in its full breadth, crossing all its plains and valleys as well as the high-mountain villages. He quickly gained significant international recognition, since in July 1966 the Camera magazine published in Lucerne, Switzerland, a major feature about him. Roméo Martinez introduced him in the collection Les Grands photographes (https://www.messinissalibri.com/prodotto/152963-i-grandi-fotografi-pepi-merisio) and Pepi Merisio co-signed with Gianni Berengo Gardin, who regarded him as a brother in photography, the volume on Latium for the Touring Club of Italy.

Pepi Merisio is a very important representative of Italian photography in the 20th century, and the illustrious Ferdinando Scianna declared in 2021, upon Merisio’s death: “I met Pepi in 1967 when I had just arrived from Sicily, and he already had great international prestige.” “He had just won an international prize with the reportage on the death of Zio Angelo; many were drawn to him, and I had great admiration... He had chosen his visual relationship with the world, the world he wanted to speak about and the way he wanted to do it... He had a political-cultural commitment more than direct... He was a great anthropologist of the peasant world. His archives are a cultural treasure we will continue to need to understand where we come from and where we are going, if indeed we are going somewhere.” ( https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/21_febbraio_04/ferdinando-sciannalui-ci-fa-capire-dove-veniamo-19b7d422-66bc-11eb-8ada-57b39586265a.shtml )

To view the photographic series in full screen, double-click on a photograph, then you can return to the standard display at any time.

Book from my personal collection, in excellent condition (like new), preserved with the utmost care. Very effective protected shipping and insured international tracking included.

1.150 kg Excluding packaging