Emilio Sommariva. Italian photographer 1930s – “Portrait of a man with a beard”

Artist
Emilio Sommariva. Italian photographer – Lodi 1883 – Milano 1956. In 1897 he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts where he attended the Angelo Comolli Ornate School from 1898 to 1899. Economic difficulties forced him to stop his studies. He was then hired as a photographer first at the foundry Compagnia Continentale Brunt & C. then by the photographic studio Ganzini; a few months later, in 1902, he opened his own atelier based in Viale Monforte moving in the following years in Via San Paolo and Via Montenapoleone. Sommariva asserts himself as a portrait photographer of the intellectual world of the time; he also performs reproductions of works of art, industrial photographs, architecture and landscape. His fame is confirmed by the awards he received in 1911 at the International Exhibition of Artistic and Scientific Photography in Rome (gold medal of the Committee of the Feasts) and at the International Exhibition and Photography Competition in Turin (honorary diploma). In 1922 he established himself on the international scene obtaining the first prize at the International Exhibition of Professional Artistic Photography in London- The entire catalogue of photographic production can be consulted from the “Lombardia Beni Culturali” archive

Title
“Portrait of a man with a beard” (Doc. Luigi Braga)

Date
1930s Milano

Size
Image 17 cm. x 23 cm.

Medium
Photographic paper. Silver salts gelatine printing

Conditions
Excellent. Photography can show some reflections.

Details
Original dry stamp on support and photograph