From May 23 to September 28, 2025, the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia is hosting, within the CAMERA OSCURA space dedicated to photography set up within the museum’s itinerary, the exhibition Gianni Berengo Gardin photographs Giorgio Morandi’s studio, curated by Alessandra Mauro.
The exhibition offers a selection of 21 of the most significant shots taken in 1993 by Gianni Berengo Gardin (Santa Margherita Ligure, 1930), when he was commissioned to immortalize the workplaces of the famous Emilian painter on the occasion of the opening of the Morandi Museum in Bologna, inside the Palazzo d’Accursio. Before the studio was dismantled, it was deemed essential to fix it forever through photography. The lens of one of the most distinguished photographers of the 20th century thus delves into the rooms where Giorgio Morandi ’s (Bologna, 1890-1964) masterpieces took shape, to tell the story of the layering of the spaces he lived in, those rooms inhabited for years.
Berengo Gardin thus penetratesMorandi’s intimate universe; he dwells on the objects long observed and portrayed by the painter. With a careful and discreet gaze, he documents the artist’s space: the hat left on the bed, the mattress that still seems to hold the imprint of the body, to offer a “journey in a room.” Above all, through his lens, Berengo Gardin captures vases, bottles, plates, coffee pots and all those objects that Morandi had skillfully arranged and ordered, before and after transposing them into his paintings.
The exhibition intends, also through its spatial dimension, to pay homage to Berengo Gardin’s mastery, evoking in the viewer the image of the studio, an intimate and cozy place of artistic creation. Thanks to two loans from the Morandi Museum in Bologna - Natura morta (1951; oil on canvas) and Natura morta con oggetti bianchi su fondo scuro (1930; etching on copper matrix) - the exhibition creates an unprecedented comparison between Berengo Gardin’s black-and-white shots and the delicate tones of Morandi’s paintings. Photographic documentation is thus transformed into poetic evocation, offering a precise record of an artistic practice founded on measurement and contemplation.
The exhibition is made possible thanks to the collaboration with Museo Morandi in Bologna, Studio Berengo Gardin in Milan, and with the support of L’orologio società cooperativa - Business Unit Sistema Museo.
Hours: Daily from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm.
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| Gianni Berengo Gardin photographs Giorgio Morandi's studio: shots on display in Perugia |
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