MILAN — The well-respected Italian photographer Paolo Di Paolo died Monday at age 98 in his hometown of Larino, within the country’s central region of Molise.
His daughter Silvia confirmed that he “has arrived at the tip of his extraordinary life and left us this morning.” Further details on the explanation for death weren’t disclosed.
The municipality of Larino shared a commemorative message on Facebook defining him as a “maestro,” an illustrious citizen of the town and “a precious a part of the history of Italian photography.” The statement read that a farewell function might be hosted Tuesday morning at the town’s San Francesco church.
Born in 1925, Di Paolo moved to Rome at an early age and shortly became one in every of the best reportage photographers, who documented the country because it emerged from World War II for the now-defunct Il Mondo weekly magazine, in addition to collaborating with other outlets and dealing on personal projects.
Using his compact Leica III C camera, Di Paolo also captured black-and-white portraits of key personalities within the country’s art, culture and particularly movie sectors, including Brigitte Bardot, Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, to call just a few. A few of his most famous images included Italian poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini portrayed on the outskirts of Rome; the encounter between actress Gina Lollobrigida and artist Giorgio de Chirico, and Anna Magnani sunbathing in her villa outside Rome.
Anna Magnani at her villa in San Felice Circeo, near Rome in 1955.
© Archivio Paolo Di Paolo
For his contribution to photography, Di Paolo most recently received an honorary doctorate in art history from the Sapienza University of Rome, coinciding together with his 98th birthday last month.
His life also became the topic of a documentary directed by Bruce Weber, who first got here across Di Paolo’s work by probability during a visit to Rome. Titled “The Treasure of His Youth: the Photographs of Paolo Di Paolo,” the film premiered on the Rome Film Festival in October 2021. A screening in Recent York was staged last yr with guests including Isabella Rossellini, Alec Baldwin, Grace Coddington, Tina Kunakey, and Allegra Versace, amongst others.
Recalling Monday how he was “lucky enough to make a movie concerning the world of di Paolo,” Weber noted how the photographer “traveled around Italy with Pasolini, documenting the changes after the fascist regime. His photographs became synonymous with neorealism in movies by Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Federico Fellini,” Weber said.
After introducing di Paolo (who was then 96) to the photographer Tony Vaccaro (who was then 97), Weber said the lads made a plan to get together “next summer” with their Leicas. “Paolo taught me that it’s good to think that way — there’s all the time a fantastic expectation when you’ve a camera in your hand,” Weber said.
A friend of Vaccaro’s wrote to Weber that she thought they were “up in heaven swapping stories about growing up Italian.” “I fall in love with Italy each time I see one in every of Paolo’s pictures. So I drink a toast as I hope these two men are looking down on us and laughing,” Weber said.
Along with his reportage work, Di Paolo had fashion-related stints. Before retiring to the countryside outside Rome in 1968, he concluded his photographic profession by collaborating with journalist Irene Brin on exclusive fashion reports concerning the international jet set.
Specifically, in 1967 he documented the Valentino high fashion show in Capri, an experience he replicated just a few years ago. To wit, in 2020 the style house’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli invited Di Paolo to Paris for the brand’s couture spring 2020 show, with the photographer joining within the behind-the-scenes process, too.
Memories of that tie-up were shared on Monday by Piccioli on Instagram, flanked by a straightforward caption reading “Ciao Paolo Di Paolo” and heart-shaped emojis. Piccioli already selected the social network to share glimpses of the experience at the moment, with posts starting from the entire Valentino team photographed by Di Paolo to the look inspired by the 1967 collection.
“Paolo Di Paolo was a delicate man whose inner elegance I’ll all the time remember with admiration. He was an artist, an observer, and a kind-at-heart one that had worked with great personalities never betraying his values and love for all times,” Piccioli said to WWD on Monday.
“He had a disruptive personality too, and a surprisingly punk attitude,” continued the designer. “Once, at 94, he got here to one in every of my high fashion shows. He desired to take an image of an archive coral hat so bad that he climbed up a ladder with none hesitation. He shot that coral hat with a smile on his face, it was his own amusement, his own moment of grace. His pictures captured human frailty behind glamour, the magic of an era, and mostly: the reality. We’ll miss his smile, but always remember his lesson.”
In an interview with WWD in 2021, Di Paolo also offered a glimpse of the moments shared with Piccioli. “That was for fun. I took the camera with me in case it turned out to be useful,” said the photographer. “I did it also due to Pierpaolo [Piccioli], who’s a pricey friend. Then, at a certain moment there was a model trying a dress and a headgear that was product of corals that looked like one I photographed in 1967. It was so beautiful,” he added.
“So after they were doing the fittings, a picture got here to my mind and I said, ‘Everybody stops’ and there was this staircase, so I checked the sunshine there. They were probably considering, ‘Now this 95-year-old man [gets hurt]’ but I regained a lot energy in that moment.…I still know find out how to take pictures, you already know. I still wish to take pictures, but only for fun now,” he said on the time.
Forte dei Marmi, 1959.
Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo
The collaboration with Valentino was a part of a momentum that brought fresh attention to Di Paolo’s work lately. In reality, the photographer quit the occupation roughly 60 years ago “when the atmosphere modified in Italy, and all people wanted were scandals,” he said in 2021, referencing how, with the appearance of television and paparazzi, information increasingly pivoted toward news and gossip scoops.
“For me photography needed to be informative, narrative. You may not know the topic but you understand the situation. In every image there’s a story to inform, even when it’s a static one. That was my law,” he offered.
Di Paolo’s photographic archives with greater than 250,000 negatives, contact sheets, prints and slides, remained hidden for many years until his daughter found them by probability within the early 2000s and brought them back to light, progressively reviving the general public’s interest in his work.
In 2019, Rome’s MAXXI museum, the Museum of the Arts for the twenty first Century, dedicated an in depth retrospective to the photographer, titled “Mondo Perduto,” or “Lost World.” As reported, back then Gucci teamed with the museum on the publication of the exhibition book, which gathered greater than 300 photos taken between 1954 and 1968.
On the roof of Duomo, 1960.
Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo
The show was followed by two other exhibitions staged in 2021 at Galleria Carla Sozzani, at the ten Corso Como location in Milan. Each curated by Di Paolo’s daughter, one was titled “Milano (fotografie 1956-1962)” and presented a collection of images celebrating the town and shedding a poetic light on Milanese landmarks within the ’60s. The opposite was dubbed ““La Lunga Strada Di Sabbia,” or “The Long Road of Sand,” and displayed 101 images — several unpublished — flanked by text by Pasolini.
The exhibit referenced an editorial work Di Paolo and Pasolini developed in 1959. Published by the Successo magazine in three issues, it reported on Italians on vacation, anticipating Italy’s rebirth within the Sixties.
On the time, Pasolini was not a movie director yet but had published “The Better of Youth,” “The Street Kids” and “A Violent Life.” The 2 didn’t know one another and made for a fragile partnership on the task. For instance, after setting off along with the plan of traveling along the coasts of Italy, that they had different visions.
Walter Chiari in Fregene, 1959.
Archivio Fotografico Paolo Di Paolo
“Pasolini was searching for a lost world of literary ghosts, an Italy that now not existed,” recalled Di Paolo on the show opening. “I used to be searching for an Italy that looked to the longer term. I conceived the title meaning the strenuous road traveled by Italians to achieve well-being and holidays after the war.”
That first experience ended up in mutual respect and trust, with Di Paolo identifying his favorite image with the black-and-white photograph portraying Pasolini himself in a city’s outskirts.
On Monday, Fondazione Sozzani took to Instagram to pay tribute to the photographer, sharing a message that read: “Fondazione Sozzani is deeply sad to listen to concerning the passing of Paolo Di Paolo and desires to recollect the good contribution he gave to the history of Italian photography. During “La Lunga Strada Di Sabbia,” which we hosted in 2021, a robust and type friendship was born between the Fondazione and Paolo Di Paolo and his daughter Silvia Di Paolo, who curated the exhibition. Our deepest sympathy goes out to her and all his family at this difficult time.”
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