Exhibitions
Life through the eyes of Elliott Erwitt
"Some find my photographs melancholic, others find them funny. But aren't melancholy and irony two sides of the same coin?" This apparent contradiction encapsulates much of Elliott Erwitt's (Paris, 1928–New York, 2023) approach to photography, an artist capable of finding humor, tenderness, strangeness, or melancholy hidden in seemingly insignificant everyday scenes.
The Civic Archaeological Museum of Bologna presents, from October 1, 2026, to February 28, 2027, Elliott Erwitt: The Art of Seeing, an exhibition that offers a fresh perspective on his career. Beyond the iconic images that helped make him one of the most renowned photographers of the 20th century, the exhibition seeks to reveal the man behind the camera: the father, the husband, the friend, the traveler, and above all, that tireless observer of the human condition.
IMMAGINE GUIDA: NEW YORK CITY, 1974 © ELLIOTT ERWITT (CLICK ON THE IMMAGINE TO VIEW IT AT THE SCHERMO)
Curated by Biba Giacchetti and produced and organized by Civita Mostre e Musei, in collaboration with the Civic Archaeological Museum of the Civic Museums Sector of the City of Bologna, the exhibition brings together around one hundred photographs that trace different periods of Erwitt's career. Alongside some of his best-known images, the exhibition includes a significant collection of photographs from his private collection, many of which are being shown publicly for the first time.
The selection thus allows us to shift our focus from Erwitt as an icon to a much more personal photographer. His most celebrated photographs do not appear isolated from his biography, but rather as part of a life experience in which private events, travels, encounters, and everyday observation constantly informed his photographic style.
In Erwitt's work, the intimate is never confined to the autobiographical. A family scene, a fleeting gesture, a couple, a dog, a landscape, or a seemingly banal situation can acquire a universal dimension when captured by his camera. The photographer extracts from these small fragments of reality emotions recognizable to everyone: desire, loneliness, affection, absurdity, loss, complicity, or humor.
This ability to transform the particular into a shared experience explains much of the enduring relevance of his work. Erwitt observed before photographing, and in that waiting, he found situations in which reality seemed to reveal, for an instant, something that normally remains hidden. His photography didn't need grand events to speak of the world: it was enough for him to look attentively.
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