LONDON.- Prahlad Bubbar presenting a selection of works by Gianni Berengo Gardin, Italy’s most celebrated living photographer.

Berengo Gardin is best known for his iconic images of Italy, in particular of Venice in the 1950s and 1960s, although he has also travelled widely taking photographs throughout Europe, America and the East.

All works presented are vintage prints drawn from Berengo Gardin’s personal archive and showcase some of the most arresting images he has made in the last 50 years.

Featured are intimately shot portraits of 20thcentury Italy that brilliantly capture the psyche of its people at work and leisure, and a country on the brink of transformation from an agricultural based economy into one of the world's most industrialised nations.

Henri Cartier Bresson’s favourite shot by the artist, Vaporetto (1960), is also presented. This, considered to be Berengo Gardin’s most iconic image, was shot on the artist’s first roll of 400 ASA film given to him by Cornell Capa. The image was taken inside a vaporetto and ingeniously reassembles the sharp-suited men aboard in the reflecting glass and mirrors.

The Italians marks the third occasion Berengo Gardin has shown in Britain since 1975, when Bill Brandt included him in his seminal exhibition Twentieth Century Landscape Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Gianni Berengo Gardin (born 1930, Santa Margherita Ligure) has produced over 250 publications and participated in innumerable exhibitions worldwide. In 2013 he was honoured with a prestigious retrospective at Milan’s Palazzo Reale and the Casa Tre Oci in Venice. His images form part of major collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Calcografia Nazionale in Rome, the FNAC Collection and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

Prahlad Bubbar is a leading specialist in classical Indian/Islamic art and 19/20th century photography. His gallery in located on Cork Street at the epicenter of the art world, in London. He regularly sells and loans works of historical significance to major public and private collections. For over ten years he has co-curated exhibitions and publications with his wife Shubha Taparia, that have received widespread critical acclaim. Their key interests also include 20th century design and the Surrealists.