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The Inge Morath exhibition in Venice

«I had to move and explore the city, so for hours I wandered aimlessly, just looking, obsessed with the pure joy of seeing and discovering a place. Obviously I had devoured books about Venice, about painting and what I was supposed to do. My brain was full of them.” Venice, 1955: the art magazine L’Œil commissions Inge Morath to write a report with the writer Mary McCarthy.

For Morath it is not the first time in the lagoon city. In 1951 he chose it as a destination for his honeymoon: love at first sight. In those years she was already working for Magnum as an editor. One day she calls Robert Capa, head of the famous agency, to find a photographer. “Why the hell don’t you snap, stupid?” he replies.
«I adjusted the camera and pressed the shutter button as soon as I saw everything as I wanted. It was a revelation. Realizing in an instant something that had been inside me for so long. After that, there was no stopping me.” And Morath never stopped.

It is precisely from these shots that he starts Inge Morath Photographing from Venice onwards, the exhibition at the Palazzo Grimani museum in Venice until 4 June. There are over 200 images on display, most of them dedicated to the lagoon city, while others are reportage made in Spain, Iran, France, England and Ireland, the United States, China and Russia. There are also portraits, to which Morath has concentrated the latter part of his career, including Marilyn Monroe on the set of Misfits in 1960.

First Magnum photographer, where she remained until 1969 and then returned in 1980, Morath defied convention from the start, managing to carve out a role in an environment that until then was dominated by men. You have always traveled and before dedicating yourself to any reportage you studied in depth the culture of the country you would have visited, also through the images already taken by others. In Venice, for example, you waited a week before starting to photograph next to Mary McCarthy.

“Seated on a pontoon that jutted out onto the canal was a painter with a blue-yellow straw hat and his legs dangling in the air.” Although he wasn’t on the subject with the project, he made a portrait of him. The painter’s name was Bobo Ferruzzi and his boldly colored paintings were inspired by works by Tintoretto. Bobo was Morath’s guide on that trip, together they explored hidden corners and places, secret gardens that only a Venetian can know. Nothing escaped her gaze, however, either the clothes hanging from the buildings, the pigeons gathered to collect the crumbs in Piazza San Marco, the children intent on playing among the splendid ancient statues and the women sewing on the doorstep. «By evening my feet felt tired, and even in my sleep I found myself still walking on countless bridges, the waves of the canals now petrified».

Inge Morath, Venice, 1955 © Fotohof archive / Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

(c) Fotohof Archive

Inge Morath, Marylin Monroe on the set of The Misfits, Nevada, 1960 ©Fotohof archive / Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

(c) Fotohof Archive

Inge Morath, Venice, 1955 © Fotohof archive / Inge Morath / Magnum Photos

(c) Fotohof Archive

Source: Vanity Fair

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