Gianni Berengo Gardin

Berengo Gardin has been the sole contributor or a major contributor to a large number of photobooks: the exact number up to any time depends on various definitions – what a separate book is (as opposed to a mere new edition), what a "major" contribution is, and more – but one estimate in 2014 put the number at 250 (and added that "only 10 are in colour").

Berengo Gardin has had many exhibitions: the number was described in 2008 as "around 200". A small sample are listed below.

In the early 1990s, Berengo Gardin spent time living among the Romani people (Zingari) of Italy, hoping to show their lives from the inside. This resulted in two highly regarded books, La disperata allegria (Florence) and Zingari a Palermo (1994 and 1997).

Since 1990 Berengo Gardin has been represented by Contrasto.

Morire di classe (1969) is probably the most celebrated among Berengo Gardin's books. Other award-winning books (see "Awards") include India dei villaggi (1981, about the villages of India) and La disperata allegria and Zingari a Palermo (1994 and 1997, about the Romani people of Florence and Palermo respectively).

From 1966 to 1983 Berengo Gardin worked with Touring Club Italiano, providing much or all of the photography for books about regions of Italy and other European countries or their cities: he once identified the high point of his career as "The work I did in Great Britain, for the Touring Club in 1978" (adding that "I loved the cars: I had an Austin and an MG"). He did similar work for the publisher Istituto Geografico De Agostini (later De Agostini Publishing). In 1979 Berengo Gardin started to work with Renzo Piano, photographing the process of designing his buildings. Berengo Gardin also worked with major Italian firms – Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Italsider (later Ilva), Olivetti and others – showing the working life of employees, rather than the products.

The photograph was included in Berengo Gardin's book Venise des saisons (1965). It was warmly received; Henri Cartier-Bresson:

He turned professional in 1962 and two years later moved to Milan, where he has lived since 1975.

Berengo Gardin's "most renowned image of Venice", often referred to as Vaporetto, Venice, 1960:

In Berengo Gardin's first year as a photographer, 1954, his first photographs were published in Il Mondo. This magazine, edited by Mario Pannunzio, was one to which both amateurs and professionals liked to submit their work, although until 1959 the photographs were not attributed to particular photographers. It "pursued a photographic aesthetic that privileged street scenes and odd, ironic or bizarre encounters in both town and country", and "more than a third of the photographs published in Il Mondo were by [Berengo Gardin]." His "rare capacity for capturing simultaneous actions and objects within the same frame positioned him as an excellent candidate for that street life Pannunzio was after." Berengo Gardin would later have photo essays published in Domus, Epoca, l'Espresso, Stern, Time, Vogue Italia; Réalités; Le Figaro; and La Repubblica.

Gianni Berengo Gardin (born 1930) is an Italian photographer who has concentrated on reportage and editorial work, but whose career as a photographer has encompassed book illustration and advertising.

Born in Santa Margherita Ligure on 10 October 1930, Berengo Gardin lived in Switzerland, Rome, Paris and Venice before starting as an amateur photographer in 1954. As a photographer, he was self-taught, learning photography from two years he spent in Paris working with other photographers.