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Fabrizio La TorreFirst Looks over Canada, 1955 - 12 ex - Limited Ed - Black & White Photography 1955
1955
About the Item
Artwork sold in perfect condition
Coffret Collector # 1 from a limited editon of 5
Each coffret is including 12 Fine Art Limited Edition Prints up to 13 x 19 inches
These photos were made in 1955, printed later, the negative was digitized during the artist's lifetime and the technical parameters (framing, contrast, light, etc.) was approved by him. These are very high quality fine art prints on 310 gr/m² with museum quality pigment inks.
During the 15 years during which he gave himself to photography, Fabrizio La Torre traveled to Italy, Europe, North America and Asia. From everywhere he brought back photos that tell of the human, universal and soul-filled condition, to which he was so sensitive. Here is First Look at Canada, where Fabrizio La Torre stayed in November and December 1955, on a 6-month trip to North America which also took him to Canada and California. In Montreal, he could not resist the urge to travel aboard the "Canadian", the most modern and luxurious version of the Canadian Pacific train, inaugurated a few months earlier, on April 24, 1955. And even if the official story of this company claims that as from this inauguration the train was pulled by modern diesel locomotives, the heavy steam engines are still used, to the delight of the photographer who knows how to play with their big white plumes. In stations, on platforms, steam is everywhere; while the temperature is around - 30°C, steam is welcome to thaw the axles, often blocked by ice.
1 – « The Rex Hotel », Toronto, November 1955. A cold, gray day where the snow is not far away, silhouettes of men in hats walking past the Rex Hotel. It has not yet become the legendary venue for all jazz concerts in Toronto. But for its comfortable rooms and its reasonable prices, this is where Fabrizio La Torre chose to stay.
2 – « On Wellington Street », Toronto November 1955.
The Gooderham building which remains one of the city symbols today, now surrounded by imposing skyscrapers while back then it was it’s turret that stared at the passer-by and the circulation of all its majesty .
3 – « Pietra e ferro », Stone and iron, Toronto November 1955. In every North American city where he passes, Fabrizio La Torre is struck by the overwhelming mass of buildings and the ubiquity of large cars, which he compares to living rooms. For this former naval officer accustomed to scanning around him with binoculars, the horizon is seems short. And nature is missing too: no tree grow outside the parks where they are confined.
4 – « Billiards », Toronto November 1955. Billiards, shoe shiners, restaurants, there is nothing lacking in the happiness of these gentlemen whose silhouettes in long coats and small hats definitely evoke the atmosphere of American movies of those years.
5 – « La partita di Hockey », Canada November 1955. An improvised hockey game by this group of lads, who seem to cope quite well with the cold and snow. A snapshot as Fabrizio La Torre liked it; he could no longer remembered the exact location of this scene which includes every elements that he had loved in Canada, the trees, the wooden houses, the big cars, the snow, and despite the intense cold, human beings living an almost "normal" life.
6 – « Georgian Bay Airways », Canada. Aboard the Canadian Pacific, November 1955. When winter comes, seaplanes put on ski-like skates use the frozen surfaces of Canadian lakes to take off and land. This airline still exists and if the places have changed a lot, the planes have almost the same silhouette.
7 – « Al riposo », Canada, november 1955. Since April 1955, the Canadian Pacific, now simply the Canadian, has acquired luxury cars and diesel locomotives, and has referred large steam engines to the subordinate role of station laborers. These steel monsters, who have so often faced the snow and the cold, are content to make figuration for travelers sensitive to their quaint charm.
8 – « La ciminiera non è sua », Canada november 1955. Double optical illusion for this factory chimney seeming to come out of a passenger car of the "old" Canadian Pacific, while the wind pushes the smoke horizontally and the swirls of snow near the wheels, and incites to believe the speed of a train yet stopped.
9 – « Da una macchina fotografica gelata », Canada, november 1955. Unaware of the temperatures that await him in Canada, (it is around -30°C), the Italian photographer is not well equipped: he is too lightly dressed and his shoes are not made for so much snow. So is his camera! Under the effect of the cold, the mechanisms are blocked and the film freezes… This snapshot that will come out shows a wrapped-up silhouette sneaking between two old cars, a photo where the grain coming from the cold plays with the gradients of the jets of steam. A superb result of "sfumature di grigio", delicate shades of gray that warm the Canadian cold.
10 – « Una fredda indifferenza », Canada november 1955. Fabrizio La Torre, a man from the South, used to the Mediterranean sun, couldn’t hide his astonishment, tainted by a little admiration, for the apparent indifference with which his traveling companions, all Canadians, seemed to endure the cold, the wind and the snow that marked their adventure.
A few minutes before the departure whistle, some stroll casually on the quay.
11- « Ancora il vapore », Canada november 1955. While the “Canadian” was undoubtedly the most modern version of this intercontinental train, it still needed sprays of good old steam to thaw the axles before departure.
12 – « Universo bianco », Canada november 1955. In the new "Canadian", a saloon car is dominated by a panoramic glass bubble allowing to admire the white immensity in conditions of unequaled comfort and heat. This equipment was made possible by the introduction of diesel locomotives in place of the old steam engines: these had the defect of spitting out clouds of gray smoke charged with coal dust. But very quickly, this white as far as the eye could see eventually tires children who prefer to run in the aisles of these magnificent cars.
- Creator:Fabrizio La Torre (1921 - 2014, Italian)
- Creation Year:1955
- Dimensions:Height: 13 in (33 cm)Width: 18.9 in (48 cm)Depth: 0.12 in (3 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Brussels, BE
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU157028197472
Fabrizio La Torre, who was born in Rome (Italy) on 11 January 1921 and died in Brussels (Belgium) on 27 August 2014, he was an Italian photographer active for a 15 year period in the 1950s–1960s and whose neorealistic and intimistic works are typical of cinema and photography of that time in Italy. La Torre said that “his parents gave him his first camera, a Bakelite body with non-adjustable lens and focus which produced rather strange half format 18x24 millimeter negatives. It was with it that he took his first photos.” Since then, he tried to take pictures at any occasion especially during the different trips he made during his life, “trying to capture the daily life” of the people he encountered.
La Torre justified his "frenzy of travel" as a pretext to flee from the paternal model and the resumption of management of a family estate.
Since the early 1950s and until the late 1960s, La Torre produced less than 10 thousand photos worldwide. After this period, he gave up photography, gave away or sold his cameras, closed his archives and put them away in boxes where they would remain out of sight for 40 years.
In 2009 he agreed to re-open his archives for examination and study and allowed the restoration of a number of negatives. Gradually a first exhibition was prepared, focussing on Rome in the 1950s and ‘60s, “La Vera vita”. By this time he was 90 years old and in failing health. He realised that this was not a time to hold back and decided to cooperate fully in the restoration of his works. He moved to Brussels, in order to benefit from the availability of the technicians and experts which he would need.
In 2014, La Torre worked every day on preparations for his Retrospective in Monaco. He realised that this was his last chance to display his works as he thought best. Two weeks before the official inauguration, he died. His ashes would be placed in the little cemetery of Cap d’Ail next door to Monaco where his parents and his sister were already at rest.
La Torre never tried to only show the beautiful for fear of "making postcard". For him, "there is only the introduction of the human element that protects from looking like a postcard. This is why my naked landscapes are so rare."
Far from the paparazzi, La Torre developed his own style, working alone, ignoring the surprise and amused comments of Roman photographers obsessed with the Via Veneto and its starlets. They did have in common the laboratory to which they took their films, that of the Nannini Brothers in the city centre, two experts in high contrast images and probably the inventors of the concept of "stolen photos", out of focus and slightly grainy to give the impression of privacy revealed.
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