Live Auction 7584Photographs
MARIO GIACOMELLI (1925-2000)
Lot 41 GIACOMELLI -- VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS

It is not the individual photo that's important to me, but the series, the story.

MARIO GIACOMELLI in his last interview, 2000

MARIO GIACOMELLI (1925-2000)

Scanno, 1957-59

Closed15 May 2008

Price Realised

GBP 5,625

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MARIO GIACOMELLI (1925-2000)
Scanno, 1957-59
gelatin silver print
titled and annotated in pencil on verso, 'via Mastai 24' credit stamp on verso
11 7/8 x 15¼in. (30.1 x 38.7cm.)

Mario Giacomelli was a prolific image-maker from the mid-1950s until his death in 2000. A self-taught photographer, he had little concern for archival storage of his work, often letting prints pile up in disorderly stacks around the darkroom. The present owner, a friend and fellow photographer, learned to print with Giacomelli in his darkroom.

This and the following six photographs (lots 41-48) were gifted by Giacomelli to the present owner in the 1960s. The seventh, lot 48, was gifted in the mid-1970s.

Specialist note

In Looking at Photographs, Szarkowski admires Giacomelli's 'visual intelligence' and ability to recognise 'the thin slice of a second during which this picture was possible....' Giacomelli concurs: 'Nothing happens by accident -- neither the white nor the black...[in this image] the black figure is waiting for the white. When you are taking shots they have to be quick and on that occasion I was fast enough.' (quoted in Crawford, p.8)

Fig.1: According to Simone Giacomelli of the Giacomelli Estate, the photographer began using the 'via Mastai 24' credit stamp, which includes a postal code, in the mid-1960s.