Garda Panoramique. Immagini di Giovanni Negri 1900-1910
11 giugno - 7 agosto 2022

From 11th June to 11th September the highest room of Casa del Capitano of the Rocca houses Garda panoramique, photographic exhibition realized by Fondazione Negri, which has selected for the occasion 25 pictures of the main towns of Lake Garda shot by the Brescian photographer Giovanni Negri in the first years of XX century.

 

The 30x80 cm format photos were realized by using a specific French camera, whose main feature is shooting with an 180°degree angle, keeping almost unaltered the perspective lines included in the frames.

 

Giovanni Negri bought it at the manufacturer in Paris, he needed the camera for a special tour in Italy, in order to realize hundred pictures, mainly addressed to the Italian magazine Touring Club Italiano, with which he collaborated. Feature of the device was the rotable lens, which framed the consecutive sections of the picture, fixing it on a 10x30 cm format film, positioned inside the camera, according to a curved evolution, able to correct the typical deformations of the quadrangular lens.

 

The selected pictures for the exhibition at the Rocca of Lonato are inserted in a wider photographic documentation, conserved at the Fondazione Negri of Brescia: more than 1500 shots realized along the entire perimeter of Lake Garda, which provide documentary evidence of life and economic activities, during an historical period which highlighted the growing importance of tourism for the district economy.

 

Giovanni Negri was among the protagonists of photography between the XIX and the XX centuries. He was born in Pavia in 1865, when he was 23 years old he moved to Brescia where he opened his first photographic studio, destined to be one of the most important of Brescia. In 1895 his “Album di vedute di laghi italiani” (Garda, Como, Iseo e Maggiore) received praise by the Savoia family.

His equipment was particularly cutting-edge and it enabled him the creation of panoramic and stereoscopic views. Since the beginning of the XX century he dedicated to the documentation of industry, which became one of the main activities of his studio.

In 1909 the engineer Egidio Dabbeni built for him a house-studio in Calatafimi Street, Brescia. The son Umberto collaborated with him.

He died in 1919 in Gargnano.

 

After the previous exhibitions dedicated to Giovanni Tagliaferri’s photographic collection, the Fondazione Ugo Da Como of Lonato del Garda keeps with this exposition the promotion of the topic of vintage photography.

 

The XIX and XX period is strictly connected to the activity of the institution founded by the Senator Ugo Da Como (1869-1941) and the photography expositions are conceived to foster the promotion and history of the Brescian territory.