Italy's first female freelance
photographer Marcella Pedone died at 103 on Wednesday, her
family said.
Born in Rome in 1919, she turned 103 last April 27.
After graduating in languages at Venice, Pedone started her
career in Germany as a reporter and then working for photography
equipment producers and holding talks on Italy in German popular
universities where she exhibited her photos of an unknown and
rapidly changing Italy.
Thanks to the success of these lectures, she was hired by the
Bavaria photo agency.
She collaborated with the Ferrania camera company which hired
her to promote colour film, photos and short feature films,
which she tried her hand at personally, shooting documentaries.
She toured Italy for years in a caravan, spanning mountains,
fishing villages, mines, factories, and building sites where her
photos documented the transformation of Italy from an
agricultural to an industrial economy.
Her work continued after Ferrania went bust when she carved out
a place in the sector of educational and popularising
publishing, building up a formidable image bank from which she
could pick the best subjects for various publishing products for
houses like Aristea, Loescher, and De Agostini.
In 2017 she donated her trove of 170,000 photos taken over more
than 50 years of activity to the Milan Museum of Science and
Technology, together with the cameras she had used.
This precious collection has become an object of study by many
university students.
In 2021 she was the subject of the first monographic show
dedicated to the real and legendary world of the Dolomites.
"Marcella Pedone anticipated by decades, with her personal and
professional life, principles which have been consolidated in
our society and which constitute a fertile vision for the
future," said the museum's director general, Fiorenzo Galli.
"Freedom, autonomy, competence and passion are all values that
emerge from her final temporary show Transfigured Dolomites,
held in the Museum: an extraordinary cultural gift".
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