Italo Zannier to close career with exhibition for photography's 180th anniversary

Italo Zannier, born in 1932 in Spilimbergo (Pordenone), was the first professor of History of Photography in Italy, teaching in Venice. A student of architect Bruno Zevi, he is a collector of 12,000 photography books and historic photographs. He plans to close his long career with a special exhibition celebrating the 180th anniversary of photography, marking the date when Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre presented the daguerreotype in France on January 7, 1839. The exhibition will take place in February 2020 at a still-secret location. Zannier will display books from his library and about a hundred photographs, all in unique large-format prints selected from thousands of shots taken over nearly 60 years. He categorizes photographers into 'fotografisti,' 'fotografatori,' and 'fotoartieri,' distinguishing them by the quality of their gaze or hand. Zannier is supported by his family: his second wife Laura Mirè, an American cashmere designer, and their three children, including a son who teaches Number Theory at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and is considered the heir of Enrico Bombieri, another son who is an architect, and a daughter who lives in Barcelona and teaches Italian. He has curated dozens of exhibitions, including the photography section of 'Italian Metamorphosis' at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1994, and authored many essays covering from daguerreotype to selfies.