Franco Vimercati

I’d never heard of Milanese photographer Franco Vimercati (1940-2001) when I stumbled on his stunningly beautiful photographs at the Museo Fortuny in Venice.

To say Vimercati was obsessive would be an understatement. With Zen-like devotion he photographed the same humble objects over and over again (he reputedly spent ten years on the soup tureen above), both searching for that perfect print that would capture the beauty and essence of his subjects, and also reveling in the subtle variations between the repeated images.

I was mesmerized by Vimercati’s work that pairs simple compositions with a photographic technique that can only be described as sumptuous.