Active since 1948, Italian photographer Nino Migliori is recognised for his black-and-white snapshots of life in post-war Italy.
Read MoreNino Migliori's photographs have been described as neorealist for their direct engagement with the realities of everyday life. Though best known for his black-and-white photographs, Migliori has also experimented with colour and abstraction, as well as various photographic techniques such as pinhole photography, cliché verre, and oxidation.
Coming of age as Italy was emerging from the Second World War in the late 1940s, Migliori started by photographing the people and streets from his neighbourhood and travels. Among his most known works is Il Tuffatore (The Diver) (1951), taken in the seaside city of Rimini, that shows two brothers by a dock. One of them is suspended in the air, his body parallel with the horizon, just before his body dives into the water.
Migliori has a penchant for capturing people in various states—leisure, relaxation, festivities, ennui—made possible by the artist familiarising himself with his subjects before taking photographs. Chance moments and scenes from daily life are gathered in the series 'Gente dell'Emilia' and 'Gente del Delta' of the 1950s, which includes the four-part Le Mani Parlano (The hands speak) (1956). In the photographs, three middle-aged women gesture expressively with their hands, engrossed in conversation, while briefly eyeing the camera in the process.
Migliori also went on to join numerous amateur photography groups in the following years, including the Circolo Fotografico Bolognese, Misa, and Gruppo Friulano per una Nuova Fotografia, while keeping a day job to support his family.
Throughout the decades, Migliori has experimented with light, colour, and methods of photographic development. Works in this vein tend to be more abstract in form than his photographs of Italy, as seen in the brilliant sparks of white against black in Idrogramma (1952) or the overlapping stripes in Untitled (Photogram) (1968).
Migliori's concerns with form and abstraction are also visible in figurative works such as Fiera di Milano (1954), in which the building of Fiera di Milano is seen from the ground, its architecture resembling a geometric abstraction consisting of curves and sharp angles.
Migliori continues to explore different subjects and conditions. In 'Lumen', ongoing since 2006, the artist photographs by candlelight or a small light, imbuing the resulting images with atmospheric shadows. In Oltre il sipario, his solo exhibition at the Bologna Municipal Theater in 2021, Migliori presented 60 black-and-white images that depict the architecture of Archiginnasio of Bologna and performances at the theatre.
Nino Migliori's photographs have been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include Oltre il sipario, Bologna Municipal Theater (2021); La matière des rêves, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2018); The Fifties, Galerija Fotografija, Ljubljana (2018).
Group exhibitions include NeoRealismo: The New Image in Italy, 1932—1960, a touring exhibition presented at the Museo Italo Americano, San Francisco (2019) and Grey Art Gallery, New York University (2018), among others, and Neorealismo: Nuova Fotografia Italiana, Keith de Lellis Gallery, New York (2018).
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2022
