Elio Luxardo

An adopted Roman, but born in Brazil in 1908 to Italian immigrant parents, Elio Luxardo (Sorocaba, 1908 – Milan, 1969) is perhaps the greatest representative of that generation of photographers who found themselves immersed in Italy in the 1930s, while clearly differentiating themselves from their colleagues of the time.

A master craftsman of the darkroom, he arrived in Rome in 1932 and grew professionally during the period when the Cinecittà film studios were being developed, cultivating his talent by portraying the actors and actresses of the time. But it was in his studio, far from the film sets, that he brought his inventive flair to the highest level, confining his work to a fascinating and intense mise en scène, from which he was able to extract a brilliant core of images dedicated exclusively to nude photography.

The book presents this intimate production of original photographs from the early 1930s, consisting of an unprecedented and engaging relationship between light and shadow. Fascinated by Greek and Roman sculpture, the male nude alternates admirably with the female nude, in a comparison that reveals the clash between two different identities: on the one hand, an involuntary process of observance of the dogmas of the time, and on the other, a tangible trace of his youthful spirit, nurtured in the lush and free atmosphere of Brazil.

The man’s strength and vigour are immediately apparent in the representation of the male nude, which, however, intersects perfectly with the elusive eroticism of the female nude, a woman’s body far removed from the rhetoric of “home, country, family” and the icon of the “angel of the hearth”. This existential double game meant that his nude photographs, which did not fully comply with the canons of his time and those of the following decades, disappeared. His original, vigorous and seductive images have now finally re-emerged, finding light and visibility in a significant tribute to the artist.

Texts by Nicola Del Roscio, Enrico Praloran and Giuseppe Vanzella, Federica Muzzarelli, Davide Pellicciari and Carlotta Spinelli

Text in English and Italian.