Ferruccio Ferroni - Immagini inventate - 1999

Ferruccio Ferroni, Invented Images. Presentation by Luigi Dania and Mario Giacomelli. Circolo di Confusione, 1999. Hardcover, dust jacket, 28 unnumbered pages of introduction + 102 black and white photographs. In excellent condition - minimal signs of handling. The main monograph, serving as the general catalog, of the photographer from Senigallia.

Ferruccio Ferroni (Mercatello sul Metauro, July 27, 1920 – Senigallia, September 5, 2007) was an Italian photographer.

Biography
His works are poetic fragments, exquisitely composed formal images that contain the essentiality, the essence of an energy that carries the soul of things, lyrical expressiveness, and emotional participation in its most arcane laws. Time, space, light, and matter inhabit his images, brought to life through the passage of form.
Mario Giacomelli

Born in Mercatello sul Metauro, Ferruccio Ferroni almost always lived in Senigallia. After the war, having served two years in a sanatorium for his long imprisonment in Germany, he became interested in photography thanks to the suggestions of Giuseppe Cavalli, a well-educated lawyer who was trying to give a new impulse to the photographic world and who in 1947 signed, as secretary and inspirer of the Milanese circle 'La Bussola,' a theoretical 'Manifesto' published in the May issue of the magazine 'Ferrania,' which referenced the principles of Benedetto Croce's 'Breviario di estetica.' Ferroni, on the other hand, was a member of the Venetian circle 'La Gondola,' which included, alongside secretary Paolo Monti, authors of caliber such as Ferruccio Leiss, Toni Del Tin, Gino Bolognini, later joined by two talented young photographers, Gianni Berengo Gardin and Fulvio Roiter. When Cavalli founded the Misa circle in Senigallia in 1954, Ferroni immediately joined and found himself alongside, among others, Piergiorgio Branzi, Alfredo Camisa, Riccardo Gambelli, and, of course, Mario Giacomelli. Parallel to his career as a lawyer, which he practiced from 1953 to 1992, Ferruccio Ferroni developed a photographic activity that, although amateur in scope, was characterized by the rigor and balance typical of professionalism.

Attention to printing, the precision with which he organized the archive, the search for the best materials, and his deep knowledge of cameras and lenses have always characterized the work of the Marche photographer, although the true driving force was his profound passion for expressive research. From the start, he achieved significant results such as, in 1950, the prestigious award at the Grand Concours International de Photographie organized by the Swiss magazine 'Camera,' and he participated in important exhibitions, including the International Photography Exhibition (Milan, 1952), the Italian Photography Show (Florence, 1953), and 'Subjektive Fotografie 2' (Saarbrücken, 1954/1955).

There is a departure in his photographic activity aimed at Italian and international photographic circles, because from 1957 to 1984 he dedicated himself entirely to work and family. However, he continued to photograph with his Hasselblad 6x6 and color slides, especially during family trips, where his creative and deliberate approach during shooting remained consistent with his style in the 1950s. His color photography was first studied by Marcello Sparaventi and Alberto Masini in the volume 'Nel silenzio. Ferroni a colori. Le fotografie a colori di Ferruccio Ferroni dal 1955 al 2000,' published in 2014 by Omnia Comunicazione in collaboration with the Fotoclub di Potenza Picena.

In 1985, he resumed his activity in the darkroom and black-and-white photography, demonstrating that over the years his style has not at all faded. His new pursuits led him to exhibit in numerous solo and group shows in Italy and abroad, to receive recognition from FIAF (Maestro della Fotografia in 1996 and Author of the Year in 2006), and to publish several monographic volumes, including 'Invented Images,' which won the award for best photographic book of the year in Padua in 1999. In 2007, in Fano at the Nolfi Room, he exhibited for the last time, participating with his wife Lidia in the inauguration of the exhibition 'A Sublime Way,' curated by Marcello Sparaventi, with the catalog published by Omnia Comunicazione, which collects his original press sheets from 1949 to 2005.

Although not appreciated as it deserved by the world of collectors, his images are preserved in some public collections (the permanent collection of the 'Subjektive Fotografie,' the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Alinari Museum in Florence, the Museum of Modern Art in Senigallia) and private collections.

In the 2016 published book 'Italian Humanist Photography from Fascism to the Cold War' written by Martina Caruso and published by Bloomsbury Academic in London, the cover of the English edition features the photograph 'Ballerini' from 1954 by Ferruccio Ferroni.

Bibliography
Fabio Ciceroni and Valerio Volpini (editors), Le Marche between words and images. Marchigian authors of the 20th century, Milan, Federico Motta Editore / Banca delle Marche, 1996.
Related topics
Senigallia Museum of Modern Art and Information
Centrale Fotografia di Fano Cultural Association.
Mario Giacomelli (Senigallia, August 1, 1925 – Senigallia, November 25, 2000) was an Italian typographer, photographer, and painter.

Biography
Born in 1925 to Alfredo and Libera Guidini, a family of humble peasant origins, he had two sisters. His origins remained a part of his inner self as a mark of belonging, influencing his photographic work and his perspective on the world and nature in relation to man. In 1935, he lost his father, a wound that would be very deep.

The historical period and the difficult family circumstances (orphaned from his father at just 9 years old) forced Mario to stop his studies and help his family as an apprentice at the Tipografia Giunchedi (when he was only thirteen), while his mother worked as a laundress at the city's old people's home. After the war, he returned to the printing house, having participated in reconstruction work after the bombings, as a typographer worker. In 1950, he decided to start his own business, supported by his savings, which came from an elderly woman at the old people's home where his mother worked: thus was born the Tipografia Marchigiana, under the Portici Ercolani, later moved to Via Mastai 5. Over the years, it became a point of reference and meeting place with the photographer, who was known not to like moving too far from his seaside town.

In 1953, Giacomelli purchased a Bencini Comet S (CMF) model from 1950, with an acromatic 1:11 lens, 127 film, shutter speeds of 1/50+B, and flash synchronization. It was Christmas, and he went to the beach, taking his first photo, 'The Landing,' the famous photograph of a shoe carried by the waves on the shoreline, which marked Giacomelli's decision to express himself through photography from that point on. He began photographing relatives, colleagues, and friends. During those years, he relied on the photography studio of Lanfranco Torcoletti on via Mastai for printing, who introduced him to Giuseppe Cavalli, an experienced photographer and a great theorist of photography. The frequent and intense contact with Cavalli, a reverential master/disciple friendship, was crucial for Giacomelli's cultural development.


Mario Giacomelli, A Man, a Woman, a Love, 1960
For years, Cavalli was dedicated to creating a mapping of what photography was, firmly seeking an alternative to Neorealist photography, looking for young talents for a new vision of Italian photography after the war, for an 'artistic' photography, as it was called at the time. This was the reason why the amateur photography group La Bussola (Milan) was founded in 1947, complete with a programmatic manifesto (founders: Giuseppe Cavalli, Finazzi, Vender, Leiss, Luigi Veronesi). It also explains why, in December 1953, the Misa group was formed, registered on January 1, 1954, with FIAF under the name 'Associazione Fotografica Misa,' to renew the vision of photography from within the amateur photo community (also on the advice of Paolo Monti).

Under the guidance of Ferruccio Ferroni, the first 'student' of Cavalli, always under the supervision of the Master, Giacomelli delved into photographic technique. He participated in numerous Italian and international photography competitions (up until the late 1970s, thus even after gaining fame), where he stood out for originality and depth of language. In 1955, he won the National Competition in Castelfranco Veneto, where he was acclaimed by critics. Paolo Monti, a jury member, wrote: 'Suddenly, among the thousands of prints crashing down on us, Giacomelli’s photographs appeared. 'Appearance' is the most fitting word for our joy and emotion because, all at once, the presence of those images convinced us that a new photographer had been born.' During this period, he created series with a reportage style, but Giacomelli was never a verist ('No image can be 'reality,' because reality hits you only once before your eyes' [2], as in Lourdes (1957), Scanno (1957/59), Puglia (1958, where he returned in 1982), [3] Zingari (1958), [4] Loreto (1959, where he returned in 1995), A man, a woman, a love (1960/61), Mattatoio (1960), Pretini (1961/63), La buona terra (1964/66), and the very precious photographs taken at the Senigallia hospice titled Hospice (1954/56), Hospice life (1956/57), Death will come and have your eyes (1966/68).
The first publications in specialized photography magazines begin to appear. Continuing his research, the photographer starts asking farmers, paying them, to create precise marks on the land with their tractors, directly acting on the landscape to be photographed, and then emphasizing these marks in the print. Soon, Giacomelli will feel the strict stylistic precepts of Cavalli as restrictive: he feels that gray tones are inappropriate to represent that impulse and tragedy which he instead found in his strong—and at the time shocking—black and white contrasts, which he also found in Cavalli's fascinating antagonist, the founder of the photographic group La Gondola (Venice), and his friend Paolo Monti, as well as in the Subjektive Fotografie to which Giacomelli was so close that he was included in the 1960 exhibition 'Subjektive Photographie 3' (Varese), organized by Otto Steinert. On the other hand, the Misa group disbanded soon after (in 1958), precisely due to differences in viewpoints.

Another important contact for Giacomelli's creative development was undoubtedly Luigi Crocenzi. Through Crocenzi, in 1961, Elio Vittorini asked Giacomelli for the image 'Gente del sud' (from the Puglia series) for the cover of the English edition of 'Conversation in Sicily.' In 1963, Piero Racanicchi, who, along with Turroni, was among the first critics to support Giacomelli's work, recommended the photographer to John Szarkowski, director of the Photography Department at MoMA in New York, who chose to exhibit one of his photographs at the exhibition 'The Photographer's Eye': the now famous and iconic photo of the boy from Scanno.

In 1964, Szarkowski would later acquire some images from the series Scanno and some from the series "I have no hands that caress my face." The latter work was initially titled "The seminarians," but the same photographs can also carry the titles "Seminary" or "Little Priests." That same year, he participated in the Venice Biennale with the series The Hospice, Death Will Come, and Your Eyes. In 1965, by spending time with a farming family, he created one of his most well-known series, The Good Earth, rediscovering the rhythm of his being and uncovering the spiritual side of those who, working the land, remained close to their roots, respecting the origin and the meaning of Humanity.

Under Crocenzi's influence, in 1967 Giacomelli considered creating a photographic series centered on storytelling, interpreting Caroline Branson from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, with a screenplay by Luigi Crocenzi. In the 1960s, he personally met Alberto Burri, aligning with his interest in informal art and abstraction. In 1968, he began a color photographic series, which would only be completed at the end of the 1980s, titled 'The Landscape Construction Site'.

In 1978, he participated in the Venice Biennale with landscape photographs. In 1980, Arturo Carlo Quintavalle wrote an analytical book on the photographer's work, acquiring a significant number of his works for the CSAC center in Parma. In 1984, he met the poet Francesco Permunian, with whom he established a collaboration that produced the series *Il teatro della neve* (1984/86) and *Ho la testa piena mamma* (1985/87).

Between 1984 and 1985, after reading 'Il Canto dei Nuovi Migranti' by Calabrian poet Franco Costabile, he created a series of photographs in Calabria, inspired by the depopulation of inland villages and Calabrian emigration. The photos were taken in the towns of Tiriolo, San Giovanni in Fiore, Cutro, Santa Severina, Badolato, Seminara, Pentedattilo, Bova, Caraffa di Catanzaro, Amaroni; Cropani, Zagarise, Magisano, Vincolise, Cavallerizzo di Cerzeto, Sant’Andrea Apostolo dello Jonio, Cessaniti, San Marco, San Cono, Nao, Jonadi, and Pernocari. Regarding these photos, Giacomelli stated:

I wanted, like Costabile, to shout. I didn't create any landscape. Why? It's not that I did it on purpose; I wasn't inclined to do it, and I didn't do it. But now, reflecting and thinking about what they tell me: the land is beautiful, but it's not theirs. That's why I wasn't attracted to make the land. I was looking for Costabile to say: I was looking for the real Calabrese. There are four who are doing well; I was looking for the others who are not doing well. I was trying to enter into Costabile's world.

Between 1983 and 1987, he created 'The Sea of My Stories,' a series of aerial photographs taken at the beach of Senigallia. In the 1970s to 1990s, Giacomelli photographed the Adriatic coast near Senigallia, creating the series 'My Marche' and 'The Sea.' In 1983, inspired by his poem 'Nothing,' he began a series on seagulls, but as early as 1982, he used a poem of his for a color series titled 'Reality Hits Me.' During the 1990s, he tirelessly worked on a substantial series that originated from the abandonment and subsequent demolition of a company owned by his friend Otello. In 1997, he created the subject for the well-known Illy coffee roastery's annual artistic cup service called 'States of Mind,' part of the Illy Collection.

In the nineties, the series 'Vita' by the painter Bastari (1991/92), 'I Am Nobody' from a poem by Emily Dickinson, 'Poems in Search of an Author,' Bando (1997/99), and December 31 (1997) were created. Towards the end of August, he concluded the series 'Return,' born from reading a poem by Giorgio Caproni. Mario Giacomelli died on November 25, 2000, in Senigallia, after a year of illness, while working on the series 'This Memory I Would Like to Tell' (2000), 'Memories of a Boy from '25,' and 'The First Sunday' (2000).

Starting from the year 2001, the Sannita Photography Club of Morcone in the province of Benevento establishes a photography award named in memory of Giacomelli.