Ferdinando SCIANNA (b. 1943). The Sicilians, 1977. Posterior - Lot 490

Ferdinando SCIANNA (b. 1943). The Sicilians, 1977. Posterior silver print, 40 x 50 cm, circa 2000. Titled "Laura in Napoli' (Italy) for "Moda", 87-11-47-8A" and stamped by the photographer on verso. "Co-opted by Henri Cartier-Bresson, "his lifelong master", Ferdinando Scianna was the first Italian photographer to join the Magnum agency, in 1982. At the age of thirty-seven, this recognition by his peers also confirmed Scianna's cardinal place in the post-war Italian photographic scene. A Sicilian by birth, Scianna began by passionately photographing his island, and went on to study literature and philosophy in Palermo. This classical and humanist training largely explains the profoundly literary - but also ethnological - dimension of his work. Ferdinando Scianna embodies a rare form of photography that can be read on several levels, and whose plastic quality is underpinned by a vast culture." Argument for the book, Ferdinando Scianna, Les Siciliens, Denoël, 1977.