Richard Avedon's Italian photographs on view at Gagosian Rome

Gagosian Rome presents 'Italian Days,' an exhibition exploring Richard Avedon's Italian photographs from March 12 to May 17, 2025. Avedon (New York, 1923 – San Antonio, Texas, 2004) revolutionized 1950s fashion photography with a narrative-cinematic style, likely influenced by his post-war travels in Italy. The show features the complete 'Italy (1946–48)' series—street scenes from Rome, Sicily, and Venice—shown for the first time in its entirety, alongside iconic celebrity portraits. Avedon began his Italian journey in Rome in 1946, capturing both beauty and devastation. The exhibition highlights compositional correspondences between portraits of stars like Bette Midler and anonymous Italian subjects. Avedon's career included work for Harper's Bazaar (from 1945), Vogue (1960s), and campaigns for Gianni Versace, where he helped create the supermodel phenomenon (Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington). He also documented social issues, photographing miners, farmworkers, and anti-Vietnam War protests in 1969. The exhibition includes 1946 images of Zazi, a Roman street performer, and an Avedon self-portrait anticipated by a young Sicilian soldier.