Open from 21th September to 3rd November 2024, the exhibition "The gaze of Vittorio Sella. Photographs from the collection of Roger Härtl" welcomes works exhibited for the first time in Italy, coming from a private collection related to what was the greatest Italian mountain photographer.
This is an extraordinary collection of original photographs by the mountaineer, explorer and photographer Vittorio Sella (1859-1943), dating from the 1880s to the early 1900s, relating to expeditions in the Alps, in the Caucasus, Africa and the Himalayas.
These are accompanied by precious volumes that collect the reports of expeditions, illustrated by images of Sella that continue to inspire generations of photographers, guiding their gaze and representing almost an aesthetic canon of the mountains.
For their technical and artistic quality, the photos were used for decades in Europe and the USA to illustrate prestigious books of photography and mountain and to study ways of climbing remote peaks and prepare important mountaineering expeditions.
Vittorio Sella’s originals arrive in Belluno after being exhibited at the Grolier club in New York, where Roger Härtl, a neurosurgeon and university professor whose mother was born in Val di Zoldo, lives.
With this exhibition, Belluno pays tribute to the "photographic" gaze of a great explorer who has contributed to the knowledge of the Dolomites and the history of mountaineering.
The exhibition, which is sponsored by the Sella Foundation of Biella, is curated by Carlo Cavalli and Flavio Faoro.
