by Graziella Vigo
“Excuse me, may I take a photo?” The woman with the shy but curious expression, always in white and with a camera in hand, comes up to the great producer, the famous actor, the severe artist, the stylist who has been photographed a thousand times. They barely look at her, just long enough to be ensnared by something that possesses her and her spirit, a gentle hidden strength, a serene determination, something mysterious that you can’t get away from. They all say “yes”, subdued by her simplicity, by a great hidden passion that is the sign of her life. What can you tell about a person, about a life without photographing every wrinkle, every radiance, every sign of fatigue, every sweetness in that flash of time in which one reveals oneself under the sway of the lens, which reaches beyond the daily mask to penetrate the very soul, the truth?”.
From the foreword by Natalia Aspesi
Graziella Vigo, born in Milan, studied in Geneva, a professional journalist, fashion editor for Rizzoli for ten years and from then on an independent photographer.
Moving to New York, she specialised in fashion photography at the International Center of Photography and then in black and white portraiture with Robert Mapplethorpe.
Her rich file of portraits gave birth to her first book “Portrait” and important exhibition at the Museo della Permanente – the Milanese Gallery of Modern Art. Her fortuitous meeting with the conductor Riccardo Muti at La Scala opened up a new period dedicated to the theatre and the opera with the magical music of Verdi. Thousands of photographs of productions from Milan to Tokyo were ready for a new book “Verdi on Stage” and an exhibition bearing the same name, which, after opening in Parma at the Palazzo Farnese, was invited by the New York Public Library first to the Lincoln Center and thereafter toured the United States. Upon returning to Milan, she opened her own photographic studio and continued to work with many different national and international publications. She was present at a lot of journeys as special correspondent; to Washington at the White House, to Moscow at the Kremlin, to Peking where she covered the “Fourth World Conference on Women” for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for Equal Opportunities.
Long journeys in China, India and Armenia gave rise to further books followed by personal exhibitions in Italy and the United States, starting from New York, her second city.
From Milan came recognitions such as the Ambrogino d’Oro “for her career in fashion but also for all her work for Indian waifs in the Care and Share association”.The gold plaque from Friends of the Opera “for portraying the divine music of Verdi”. And finally the Fondazione Marisa Bellisario prize “for the gift and the creative genius with which she has managed to achieve the international fame that is the reward of her feminine Italian talent in modern art.”
“… in her photography there emerges clearly a consolidated experience as journalist, with an interesting approach to the photographic image. Her meticulous attention to detail, the study, the knowledge and the taste of light make her a “portraitist” with an eye on the technique of the past and the softness of the modern portrait.” Lanfranco Colombo
The Exhibition, sponsored by the Italian Embassy, will be inaugurated on 5 June and will remain open until the 26 June.