COLLEZIONE PAOLO MORELLO

How to narrate a revolution? Among the many photographers who flocked to Budapest in 1956, sent by major magazines, Italian Mario De Biasi earned a place of honor. His reportage was published not only in Italy but also in nineteen foreign countries.

Soviet tanks on the streets of Budapest, the attack on the headquarters of the AVH, the Hungarian secret police, and the lynching of an officer remain among the most dramatic and poignant testimonies in the history of international reportage. Among the crowd, mostly composed of students, can be seen Life correspondent John Sadovy. In the same square, that same day, Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini, the photographer for Paris-Match, was fatally shot while running alongside De Biasi.

Twenty-five years ago, one of Italy’s most important photography collections was offered as a donation to Palermo. Thousands of masterpieces, including original vintage prints, letters, manuscripts, magazines, and first editions of major photography books, were collected.

All of this was intended to form the first Museum of Photography in Italy open to the public.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, the proposal was rejected. Other projects were to be realized. Part of the collection was subsequently exhibited in Paris, Milan, and Moscow, and finally auctioned at Christie’s in London.

Occasionally, to finance new acquisitions, exhibitions, or publications, works by the artists most widely represented in the collection are put up for sale.