A unique opportunity for photography and art lovers: Palazzo Roverella in Rovigo hosts, from Saturday 28 September 2024 until Sunday 26 January 2025, the most complete exhibition ever organized in Italy dedicated to Henri Cartier-Bresson. Known as “The Eye of the Century”, the brilliant French photographer and photojournalist (1908-2004) was able to capture the perfect moment like few others, the fleeting instant that contains an unrepeatable emotion.
Henri Cartier-Bresson and Italy: over 200 masterpieces on display
The exhibition, entitled Henri Cartier-Bresson and Italycollects around 200 works that highlight the photographer’s connection with Italy.
The exhibition is curated by Clément Chéroux and Walter Guadagnini. Chéroux is director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, while Guadagnini directs the CAMERA Foundation – Italian Center for Photography in Turin. An unmissable exhibition to experience the elegance and depth of his unique gaze.
Cartier-Bresson’s photographic journey through Italy
The exhibition Henri Cartier-Bresson and Italy at Palazzo Roverella in Rovigo it accompanies the visitor on a chronological journey through the French photographer’s multiple Italian stays, starting from the 1930s. Cartier-Bresson explores and documents the complexity and contradictions of our country: from the poignant landscape beauty to the social and technological transformations.
We start from the 1930s, in the company of intellectuals such as André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Leonor Fini, when the photographer began to discover Italy through iconic shots. In the 1950s, Cartier-Bresson traveled between Abruzzo and Lucania, places marked by agrarian reform and post-war reconstruction. These places, especially Matera and Scanno, inspired him with their authentic popular simplicity, strengthening the bond with the artist Carlo Levi.
In the 1960s, Cartier-Bresson returned to Italy as a correspondent for prestigious magazines such as Holiday And Harper’s Bazaarwhile the last section of the exhibition is dedicated to his travels in the Seventies. Here, on the threshold of abandoning photography, Cartier-Bresson exalts the permanence of eternal symbols and the changes of progress, dedicating particular attention to Italian industry, with evocative images of Olivetti and Alfa Romeo, which tell the roots of our contemporaneity.
Don’t want to miss our news?
