Rome hosts the first major monographic exhibition dedicated to Franco Fontana, revolutionary photographer of color photography

From December 13, 2024 to August 31, 2025, the exhibition Franco Fontana. Retrospective, curated by Jean-Luc Monterosso, promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, and organized by Civita Mostre e Musei, Zètema Progetto Cultura and Franco Fontana Studio. This is the first major monographic exhibition dedicated to Franco Fontana, one of the greatest Italian photographers of the 20th century, who revolutionized the language of color photography.

The expoisition will celebrate his entire career through a selection of more than 200 photographs and immersive spaces, including installations and videos. The public will thus have the opportunity to discover the creative universe of the Modenese photographer, including previously unpublished aspects, and to immerse themselves in the infinite optical possibilities of his images: in an alternation of bold framing, shallow depth of field and overhead framing, abstract and minimalist images characterized by a juxtaposition of vivid colors and strong contrasts will be on view. Themes such as skylines, landscapes and urban architecture are very recurrent in his work, which he always tackles by experimenting: from slide to Polaroid to digital, Fontana will follow the technical evolution of photography while always continuing to renew.

The exhibition path kicks off with a wide-angle view of Prague, used as the cover of Time Life magazine and the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, and with a portrait of Franco Fontana taken by Giovanni Gastel. This is followed by a series of shots of natural and urban landscapes characterized by strong geometry and essentiality of elements, introduced by images that enhance the color white such as Urban 1960. We then come to the most representative works of color photography in the 1960s and 1970s.

Particularly important in the photographer’s career was the publication in 1978 of the volume Skyline, where chromatic contrasts and vivid colors define a new approach to landscape. Also on display will be a number of vintage shots depicting urban landscape subjects, fragments, asphalt, cars, and a nude, NUDO 1969.
The exhibition continues with a series of shots of natural landscapes captured in the various shades of the four seasons: sea, snow and verdant plains culminating in the famous Puglia 1978 precisely divided into two blocks of vivid colors, the deep blue of the sky and the bright yellow of the wheat.

Photographs testifying to his skillful study of shadow will then be on view. The section opens with a vintage from the Contact series (published by Ralph Gibson): in 1979 Ralph Gibson invited the most influential photographers of the time to contribute an entire roll of black and white film to the book Contact Theory. Fontana accepted the challenge and chose the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in EUR as his subject, creating memorable works characterized by a metaphysical atmosphere. These works introduce a series of rare shots taken in France and Asia that capture people in urban settings, such as Paris 1994 and Tokyo 1983.

Another section is devoted to the art of photography in aquatic spaces. For Fontana, the pool becomes above all an opportunity to exalt the beauty of the female form, in a vibrant praise of curves, which will find its greatest expression in the Polaroids. There will also be a reproduction of the photographer’s studio: a jumbled collection of materials, in stark contrast to the minimalism and essentiality of his photographs. Franco Fontana follows with interest the technical developments of photography, experimenting and acquiring the tools of technology to make collages. Starting from urban landscapes and streets, he adds characters and shadows, sometimes changing their colors and accentuating their contrasts, as in Houston 1986 from the People series. The public will have the opportunity to discover works that emphasize the master’s deeply personal hyperrealist style, contrasting with Street Photography trends, and then view a series of shots from the American Light and Fragments series.

An area of the exhibition will also be devoted entirely to rare polaroids and polaroid transfers used as “visual notes” during various reportages. In this case, eroticism reaches its highest expression. In the next section, several works dedicated to the highway, asphalt, and automobiles alternate. During his travels Fontana loved to photograph in motion and, using a long exposure time, he synthesizes and captures in a single shot the lines of the roads, as in Highway 1975. From the 1970s to the present, captured by graphisms and colored marks emerging from the black surface, he photographs asphalt and creates exemplary works such as Asphalt 1990. Here the public will have the sensation of walking on the photographed asphalt thanks to special light boxes with five backlit prints. It will also be possible to admire shots of automobiles that so fascinated the master with their shape and design and a video installation of five photographs in sequence, Modena 1978. The public will have the opportunity to further understand the importance of the road for Fontana through a video-book dedicated to the three roads par excellence: the Route 66, the road to Compostela and the Via Appia. The latter closes the trilogy; it is the road that not only gives the photographer the opportunity to rediscover the familiar landscapes that have characterized his production, but also strengthens the master’s connection with the city of Rome and the heritage of our civilization.

The last section of the exhibition hosts photographs dedicated to fashion, numerous advertisements and made for private commissions. Geometric images from the Artemis series introduce a video-book of the Doges of Fashion catalog.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to discover private aspects of the photographer’s life through the display in showcases of personal photographs, vinyls, other objects to end with colorful images from Sportmax’s most recent 2020 advertising campaign.

The exhibition Franco Fontana. Retrospective is designed to be accessible. With the collaboration of Fabio Fornasari, scientific director at the Cavazza Institute for the Blind in Bologna, the BIBLIOTECA ASTRATTA project came to life, an accessibility device that can be browsed through, disassembled and reassembled to accompany everyone, sighted and blind alike, in discovering the work of the Modenese master. Composed of six units, positioned along the exhibition route, the Biblioteca Astratta is a symbolic place where every shot by Franco Fontana becomes a tactile silent book. Thanks to the renewed commitment of Rai Pubblica Utilità, the Department of Social Policies and Health - Directorate for Personal Services of Roma Capitale and the Cooperativa Segni d’Integrazione Lazio, audiodescriptions and LIS videos will also be available to accompany visitors with visual and hearing disabilities along the exhibition route. The contents of the audiodescriptions and LIS videos are available on the museum’s Accessibility Page and on RAI communication channels.

Rome hosts the first major monographic exhibition dedicated to Franco Fontana, revolutionary photographer of color photography

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