SIGNED Gianni Berengo Gardin - Gente di Milano - 2010

Exceptionally dedicated and signed copy on the title page by Gianni Berengo Gardin (1930 - 2025), unique and unavailable in a signed edition. 240 pages and about 150 full-page or double-page black-and-white photographs, introduction in Italian by Corrado Stajano. Publisher's burgundy half-cloth binding with illustration on the cover and back. In excellent condition, practically as new.

Born in Genoa, of Venetian origin, who spent his adolescence in Rome, Gianni Berengo Gardin settled in Milan in 1962. This book was published in 2010, and he had thus lived in Milan for almost 50 years. The book is organized by chronological decades, and Berengo Gardin shows us both the humble peripheral population and workers at work, as well as the bourgeois women of Via della reception of the haute bourgeoisie in their vast salons, the speculators who dine near the Stock Exchange, the Montenapoleone area, or children playing in the street, student or workers’ protests of the 1970s, residents of the “ringhiere” and those in the uniform suburbs, the crowd at the central station descending the monumental stairs, or migrants from southern Italy in transit on the station platforms before taking the train to Germany. He also photographs from above the Milan prison yard with inmates at stroll. The book ends with a photograph of an immense crowd gathered in the Duomo square to celebrate the anniversary of the liberation from Nazi-Fascism on April 25.

Gianni Berengo Gardin is, plural, the most emblematic photographer of twentieth-century Italy. With a constant attention to the presence of the human element, he photographed a rural Italy where peasant work blended with the landscape, thus foretelling the environmental movement. He is also the author of Venezia delle stagioni and Tuscany, published in the 1960s by Guilde du Livre, and the author with Carla Cerati of Morire di classe (Ref. Parr&Badger Volume II p.246). Of major technical and artistic quality, his work is monumental: he photographed interiors of homes across social classes, Italians at work in different sectors, urban development especially on Milan’s periphery, popular and religious festivities in Italian cities and villages, the Roma of Florence or Palermo, the cooperative economy, not to forget contemporary art and architecture. He has also published about ten books on various European countries.

Excellent condition copy, practically as new. A personal collection copy kept in its original state with the utmost care. Protected shipping with reinforced packaging and internationally insured tracking. For multiple purchases, group shipping is possible with reimbursement of any overpaid postage via PayPal.

1.6 kg excluding packaging