ROSPHOTO introduces to audience the work of Franco Fontana, one of the most outstanding masters of contemporary art photography in Italy. Fontana's style was shaped in the late 1960s under the influence of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. In that his teachers were his older contemporaries—Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Ed Reinhardt. Fontana's work with its focus on form and colour was quite different from the classical black-and-white art photography that was predominant at that time.

Franco Fontana's images of rural and urban landscapes are notable for their strict geometric composition and expressive colour. He says, "I try to isolate in space and time all that is normally mixed up with an infinity of details. Extracting a few essential elements from the entirety that presents itself to the human eye is one of my inner requirements".

The retrospective exhibition embraces photographs from the period of 1970-2007, from the author's own collection.


Curator Andrey Martynov

Supported by Ministry for Culture of the Russian Federation, Italian Institute of Culture (Moscow), Italian Institute of Culture (Saint-Petersburg)