Ghergo

Arturo (1900-1958). Italian photographer. After years spent in his hometown of Macerata, where he learned the basics of technique in his brother’s photo lab, he moved to Rome. In 1929, he opened a studio on the very central via Condotti. His extreme attention to lights, which he never used in a naturalistic way, and to the graphic equilibrium of his compositions, and his accuracy with a pose accentuated by the use of a large format –Ghergo favored the 18×24 — all contributed to make him within a very short time the most requested photographer in town. He was the portraitist of film stars, ever since the season of the “white telephones” (Alida Valli and Isa Miranda, then Valentina Cortese and Rossella Falk), and of the aristocracy. He also took portraits of Pope Pius XII and King Hussein of Jordan. In fact, his style was influenced in equal measure by Art Deco culture and by the tradition of the 19th century bourgeois portrait, emphasized by skilled retouching. One result of this style was his work in the fashion world, which he approached with great precision in the photographic narrative of the clothing, which in his photos always had more importance than the models themselves, and in an immobility which is both a sign of his refinement and the taste of the times.