Italian Photographer Berengo Gardin dies aged 94

Gianni Berengo Gardin identified for his iconic black-and-white photographs of life in Italy, died in Genoa on Wednesday on the age of 94.

Berengo Gardin’s legacy includes greater than two million images, 260 books and 360 solo exhibitions all over the world. Throughout his profession he remained trustworthy to his Leica digicam, defining himself as “an artisan” reasonably than an artist, saying: “My work is not artistic, but social and civil.”

Born in Santa Margherita Ligure on 10 October 1930, Berengo Gardin thought of himself Venetian, sustaining a lifelong love for Venice.

In the Sixties he started an extended profession as knowledgeable reportage photographer, collaborating with vital Italian and worldwide publications together with. His documentary images and social commentary captured photographs of trade, employees’ struggles and on a regular basis life in post-war Italy.

In 1969 he gained widespread popularity of his hard-hitting images on the inhumane situations of Italian psychiatric hospitals, with photographs that shook the nation.

The highly effective reportage sparked a nationwide debate that led in the end to the passing, in 1978, of the Basaglia Law which imposed the closure of psychiatric hospitals in favour of a community-based method and returned civil rights to psychiatric sufferers.

Hailing him as “an undisputed master of photography”, Italian tradition minister Alessandro Giuli paid tribute to Berengo Gardin as: “A true explorer who captured humanity and nature in every corner of the earth. His gaze illuminated the history of the 20th century.”

Main Image: Gianni Berengo Gardin, Great Britan, 1977  Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery