The Villa Bassi Rathgeb Museum dedicates a major retrospective to Elliott Erwitt. On display are 154 vintage photographs of great value, rarely exhibited to the public, and thirty iconic shots from his work: pieces that cover sixty years of photography history. A journey that will be enriched by audiovisual material dedicated to the great photographer, making it a true opportunity to delve into his work.

This extraordinary corpus of photographs allows us to address the main themes that characterize Erwitt’s great work: from the theme of racial integration in America after World War II to the social mutations of American society, continuing with the much-discussed theme of nudism… and then also dogs, children, and travels around the world. His shots tell a cross-section of 20th-century history and customs through a profoundly ironic gaze that characterizes the great author.

The exhibition will give true satisfaction to photography lovers and those familiar with his work, as well as to those who approach Elliott Erwitt for the first time. As Erwitt states, “Making people laugh is one of the highest results you can achieve. And when you manage to make someone laugh and cry, alternately, as Chaplin does, this is the highest of all possible results.”

Born in 1928 to Russian parents who emigrated to Paris, he grew up in Milan and at the age of ten emigrated with his family to the United States of America. His first experience related to photography consisted of developing advertising photographs in a Hollywood darkroom. During that period, he also began taking photographs on his own, photographs that showed his markedly humorous vision of the world. In 1955, Robert Capa offered him the opportunity to join Magnum Photos, founded in 1947. In 1955, the famous director of the photography department at MoMA in New York, Edward Steichen, selected some of his photographs for the famous exhibition The Family of Man. The same MoMA hosted his first solo exhibition in 1965. Since then, Erwitt’s photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, and his work has been the subject of numerous publications.

The photographs will be displayed within the extraordinary spaces of Villa Bassi Rathgeb through a specific installation that will fully enhance the interiors of the museum structure, creating a suggestive dialogue. Rarely in Italy have so many photographs dedicated to his work been collected.

Cover: Cheerleader, Gulfport, Mississippi, USA, 1954 © Elliot Erwitt / Magnum Photos