Exhibition
The exhibition celebrates one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century through a selection of 100 black and white and color shots, from ironic and surreal to romantic ones, from portraits of celebrities and children to images of travel and metropolises. The exhibition itinerary retraces the entire career of the American author and offers an insight into the history and customs of the twentieth century, through his typical irony pervaded by a surreal and romantic vein, which identified him as the photographer of human comedy.
Erwitt’s lens has often captured moments and situations that have entered the collective imagination as true icons; this is the case of the shot with Nixon and Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959, so effective that the US president’s staff appropriated it to make it a weapon in his electoral campaign, of the tragic and poignant image of Jackie Kennedy in tears behind the black veil during her husband’s funeral, or even of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger as a bodybuilder during a performance at the Whitney Museum in New York.
A great portraitist, Erwitt immortalized numerous personalities who characterized the history of the 20th century, from the fathers of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, in a rare smiling expression, to the American presidents he has photographed from the 1950s to today. In this gallery of characters, a particular corner is reserved for Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the most photographed movie star of all time, captured both in private and intimate moments and in moments of pause on film sets.
One of the recurring themes in Erwitt’s career is that of the children he loved and with whom he always had a special relationship. They are calming images in which children are caught in their joy, like the little girl from Puerto Rico or the Irish kids photographed for a tourism promotion campaign. These shots are accompanied by those dedicated to animals, in particular dogs, most often taken in funny poses or which recall an anthropomorphic attitude of imitation of man.
The exhibition also includes images that reveal Erwitt’s romantic spirit and which show couples in love exchanging moments of tenderness. Finally, a great traveler, Elliott Erwitt documented the societies and events of the common people of the countries he visited as a photojournalist, from France to Spain, from Italy to Poland, from Japan to Russia, to the numerous glimpses of life in American metropolises.
The exhibition is organized by the Museo Diocesano in collaboration with SudEst57, with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan, sponsor Credit Agricole.
