Today I visited the exhibition of Elliot Erwitt photographs at the San Dominico gallery in Forlì, Italy.
Many of the American photographer’s pictures were familiar although he is not a household name (at least not in my household).
The exhibition presents black and white + later color photos covering Erwitt’s long career – he is now 89 and still working.
Although the presentation of these images was haphazard and the audio commentary irritatingly superficial, it was well worth seeing.
Although Erwitt photographed many prominent figures, notably Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara and John F. Kennedy it is his eye for the absurdities of everyday life that are most memorable with dogs being a frequent subject.
One of my favorite images was taken at Prado Museum in Madrid in 1995 . This shows that Francesco Goya’s reclining nude of Maja is a big hit with male gazers while the clothed image of the same woman fully clothed has a lone female viewer.
