The photo archives of the National Cinema Museum of Torino contains over 862,000 images. It is a heterogeneous collection that spans the histories of silent and sound films as well as those of the photographic arts. Aside from the more usual prints on paper, other types of more unique images (daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes) are also conserved. This second group includes negatives on glass and film, autochromes, slides on glass and film and photo albums from various periods.
This rich heritage is a reflection of Maria Adriana Prolo’s interest in the role of photography as a means of studying cinema and as a bridge between pre-cinema and the “seventh art.” Ever since the birth of the Museum she had given herself the objective of creating a photographic archives which was to be dedicated, above-all, to production from Piedmont. This was because Torino, “besides being Italy’s first center of cinematic production, was also its first center of artistic photography.” Thanks to numerous donations received over the years and to the recent acquisition of the Angelo Frontoni archives, the Museum’s photo archives can today be considered an important reference point for researchers and for all those who wish to trace or perhaps discover the history of Piedmont’s cinema and photography.
Historic Photography
The collection offers the visitor an ample view of photographic output from the years between 1840 and 1940, in particular from Piedmont. Its collection of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes that document the origins of these methods is of particular interest, as is the stereoscopy collection which reconstructs the history of three-dimensional photography from 1840 to the 1960s. What makes this collection truly special are the funds dedicated to Piedmont’s photography, which have often been donated to the Museum by the families of the photographers. These funds bring together images of the area’s artistic heritage and include photos by Secondo Pia; the brothers Giuseppe and Odoardo Ratti, many of which were taken at the front during the Great War; the elaborate pictorial compositions of Domenico Peretti Griva; the futuristic experiments of Maggiorino Gramaglia; and, last but not least, the surreal and ironic still life images taken by the engineer Italo Bertoglio which made the region’s photographic art famous abroad.
The History of Cinema
The Museum has a very prestigious collection of silent films, in particular from Italy. This collection has been formed through donations that were very often made by the key protagonists of the era. Action stills and the filmmaking process, set shots and numerous portraits of actors and directors bring us right onto the sets of great classics such as Cabiria, as well as onto those of lesser films. These photographs are often the only traces left of these now-forgotten works. A collection of captions on photographic plates, which not only confirms the widespread success of Torino’s silent films but also illustrates the style of the original texts, completes the nucleus of the collection. Italian and foreign sound films are also well represented in the photo archives, which is continually expanding. Evidence of this continual growth can be found in the recent arrival of some special funds (e.g. the Petri, Ferreri and Rosi funds) and the acquisition, in collaboration with the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale, of an archives of 553,000 images taken by Angelo Frontoni (1929-2002), known as the “photographer of the divas.” Set photos, portraits, nudes, fashion shots and photos from the private lives of the stars tell the story of cinema, fashion and society as seen through Frontoni’s lens. |
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Roberta Basano
Tel. +39 011 8138 522
Fax +39 011 8138 575
basano@museocinema.it
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