Conegliano, at Palazzo Sarcinelli the first exhibition on Ron Galella, the king of paparazzi

In Conegliano, Palazzo Sarcinelli is hosting, until Jan. 29, 2023, a major exhibition featuring more than 120 photographs by Ron Galella (New York, 1931 - Montville, 2022), the most famous paparazzo in the history of photography, who passed away on April 30 at the age of 91. This is the world’s first retrospective exhibition on the great Italian-born American photographer. The exhibition, organized by SIME BOOKS in collaboration with the City of Conegliano, is curated by Alberto Damian, Galella’s agent and gallerist forItaly.

Speaking of Ron Galella, Andy Warhol had this to say, “A good picture has to portray a famous person doing something not famous. That’s why my favorite photographer is Ron Galella.” Galella was born in New York in the Bronx neighborhood in 1931 to an Italian father originally from Muro Lucano in Basilicata and an Italian-American mother. From 1965 onward, Ron Galella has chased, flushed out and photographed the great personalities of his time, managing to catch them in their extraordinary everyday life, acting almost always by surprise, without their knowledge and often against their will. Pictures stolen and taken in bursts, the result of ambushes, diversions, camouflage, chases, long waits, in defiance of any risk, physical or legal.

Jackie Kennedy in the 1970s filed two lawsuits against him, which made the newspapers at the time and received attention on American television news. Richard Burton’s bodyguards beat him and made him spend a night in jail in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Marlon Brando with one punch broke his jaw and five teeth, but then also paid him a hefty settlement through his lawyers.

Galella has been dubbed “Paparazzo Extraordinaire” by Newsweek and “The Godfather of American Paparazzi” by Time and Vanity Fair. His photos are held in the world’s most important museums, from MOMA in New York to theAndy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, from the Tate Modern in London to theHelmut Newton Foundation in Berlin. And they have been acquired by very important private collections on all five continents.

There is no major international jet-set personality of that period whom Galella has not photographed. His archive of more than 3 million shots is filled with boxes of photographs-mostly in black and white-of actors, musicians, artists, and celebrities of all kinds. To name just a few: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lady Diana, Aristotle Onassis, Truman Capote, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Greta Garbo, Liza Minelli, Madonna, Elton John, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Elvis Presley, David Bowie. And then the Italians: Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Federico Fellini, Anna Magnani, Luciano Pavarotti, Gianni Agnelli, Gianni and Donatella Versace.

The list of personalities immortalized by Galella could go on for pages: in the archives kept in his New Jersey mansion is a very rich documentation of the evolution of costume in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (his “golden years”) that is believed to be unique in the world.

And it is the very best of this monumental archive that comes to Palazzo Sarcinelli in the major exhibition Ron Galella, Paparazzo Superstar, organized by SIME BOOKS, the publishing house that in 2021, in collaboration with Galella himself, published the valuable monograph 100 Iconic Photographs - A Retrospective by Ron Galella, the artist’s last book.

The exhibition will be a journey into the memory of an era, featuring universal icons of film, art, music, pop culture and costume, and will unfold through thematic rooms, also welcoming an excerpt from Leon Gast’s Smash His Camera, the documentary about Galella’s long career that won an award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

The highlight of the exhibition will be the room devoted entirely to Jackie Kennedy Onassis, whom Galella called “my obsession” and to whom he dedicated two entire books. This room will display a copy of the world-famous Windblown Jackie, chosen by Time a few years ago as “one of the 100 most influential photographs in the history of photography” and called “my Mona Lisa” by Galella himself. The starting date of the exhibition was chosen precisely because Windblown Jackie was taken on October 7, 1971.

It will be a not-to-be-missed exhibition that, in the days of selfies and Instagram, will take us back to a time that no longer exists, in which stars entered our homes mainly through the pages of lifestyle and tabloid weeklies, album covers, posters and movie posters. This also happened thanks to the paparazzi and, in particular, to Ron, whose photographs allowed us to see the stars more closely.

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Conegliano, at Palazzo Sarcinelli the first exhibition on Ron Galella, the king of paparazzi

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