December 16, 1918

Milton Gendel (December 16, 1918 to October 11, 2018) was an American photographer and art critic. I lost my copy of his New York Times obituary but I remember the paragraph on his parents, and how, an immigrant Jew from Russia, his mother, working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, had, before the fire, struck an non-union fellow employee with an umbrella. And later refugee artists in the 1940s had partied at Gendel's Greenwich Village apartment. Now, though we leap to an Italian article about Gendel, since he made his home in Italy for most of his life. This is translated by Google, so forgive the odd incoherence.

The article is titled "THE PHOTOGRAPHER OF A VERY SWEET LIFE", which I hope is accurate (and not dolce vita), though you will see there is evidence of the latter.

'Milton Gendel is a legendary character: writer, journalist, friend of equally legendary figures such as [Andre] Breton, and Peggy Guggenheim, artists like Dali, de Kooning, Burri, [Alberto Burri (1915–1995)] ... [Mario] Scialoja [1930 - 2012] [and] crowned heads like Lady Diana and Elizabeth II. But above all photographer of an endangered world, which goes from the Sicily of the Fifties to Taiwan, passing through New York ....

'[Gendel's ... sitting room with three windows is the first room that meets the front door on the main floor of Palazzo Primoli, right in front of the Library of the same name. It is here that from 2011 there is the ...[apartment] that Milton Gendel ....has on loan for life use, after ...[his] eviction from Palazzo Doria Pamphilj. Seven... nineteenth-century relics of the landlord, Count Giuseppe Primoli, nephew of Napoleon III, are confused with objects that the art critic and photographer has collected over time. All around [are] vintage paintings, dark-backed books, the collection of walking sticks and several knick-knacks depicting animals: cats, dogs, lizards, bulls, elephants ... " We like animals," says Gendel.

In the first edition of the novel [Unconditional Surrender (1961)] by Evelyn Waugh, the English writer... with Lady Diana Cooper and Georgina Masson in the photograph taken by Milton Gendel in '63, in the garden of Villa Doria Pamphilj is printed. Brilliant and ironic. .... On the round table a pile of Art News and a couple of copies of the Milton Gendel catalog....

'[Interviewer:] Let's start with Mario Praz of whom you also took the last portrait - February 17, 1982 - before his death. Your name appears several times in the Visitors' Book of Casa Praz, even on particularly worldly occasions such as the visit of Margaret of England in 1973.

[Gendel] "Princess Margaret was a great friend of my ex-wife, who was English (Judy Montagu, ed.). Every year, for forty years, she has been our guest in Rome. He came to Italy because he enjoyed getting to know people and things, not just the monuments. ... With Mario we became friends in '58: I had been summoned by the British ambassador to be part of a committee for the construction of a statue of Byron at Villa Borghese. Since there were Goethe and many others why not Byron? When he phoned me, I asked him what kind of statue they had in mind: he told me it would be the replica of Thorvaldesen's in Cambridge. I replied that I was not sure he would have liked me in the committee, because I am not a great Thorvaldsen enthusiast,... I had other ideas on how to commemorate Byron.

'For example? ...

'By sending an Italian poet to England, ' I replied at the moment. He told me he wanted me on his committee because I could plead my idea. That's why I found myself there with various Roman luminaries, including Mario Praz. My idea of ​​celebration...[was because of] the scholarship awarded the poet Perla Cacciaguerra. I did not know it then, but ...[later] I realized that Praz had immediately supported my proposal, because he was in love with her. "
'You too, like Praz, have donated to the Primoli Foundation your archive of 72 thousand negatives (between black and white) and part of the library ...

'"Yes, this donation gave me an exceptional work environment. I find it very good between the two museums and with the Foundation itself, both the president and the entire staff are serious and interesting people. I particularly appreciate the ...gifts of Patrizia Rosazza Ferraris, director of the Praz Museum, who, together with Alvar González-Palacios and Maria Teresa De Bellis, head of the Villa Medici Library, have pleaded my case ".

'Surrealism on the one hand and Neorealism on the other seem to be the two main references in the evolution of your journey as a writer, art critic and photographer. The first ...[is suggested by your participation] in New York, in the early forties, [with] the circle of artists "imported" from Europe by Peggy Guggenheim. As for the second, we find that kind of vision in the shots that ...[shows] post-war Italy, in particular the Sicilian ones of 1950. Is that so?

'"Art ...[happens] regardless of the labels. One is interested in the most valid things according to one's inclinations: it does not matter if it is called surrealist or neorealist.

'Meyer Schapiro and Robert Motherwell are two significant figures of the times when you were a student at Columbia University: the teacher and first classmate, as well as your best friend, the second. With Motherwell, you participated in the creation of the Surrealist VVV magazine. What are your memories of that period?

'"Speaking of the magazine, Motherwell's report ended dramatically because we had been in Stanley William Hayter's studio at New York's New School and, as Christmas was approaching, we made ...[a] paper. With Christmas and all, ... we took them to André Breton. When he saw them he went on a rampage. ' .... Snakes! All my life I fought against this stuff and [you] brought me a Christmas card. Out! Out! and he threw us out. We were no longer co-directors of the magazine, although in reality it was only him who directed the magazine. We were replaced by his friend, the sculptor David Hare, who was an adorable but almost illiterate being. "

'Writing and photography will always be two parallel languages ​​for you. Was your documentary experience as a volunteer for the American army in China in 1945 decisive in the encounter with photography?

'"Sure! ...

[This picture of Queen Elizabeth feeding her corgis accompanies the article.]



.....

'In Italy you arrive in 1949: you land in Naples, together with your first wife Evelyn, with a scholarship on Italian urbanism. In your connection with Europe - even before the Belpaese - can you also trace the personal experience of a son of Russian Jews who emigrated to New York at the beginning of the twentieth century?

'"My parents did not want to be Jews and tried not to be Jews. When they could they spoke in French. My generation at the university was entirely Francophone. Europe, for me, was Paris. After the war I had no desire to return to Europe, which I considered finished. The State Department had awarded me a scholarship for China, but Mao did not want to recognize that cultural exchange, so, having to choose another country, I chose Italy, even for personal reasons. I had been there in '39 during the Grand Tour and then I had done my studies in art history with a master thesis on Giotto ".

'You worked for Adriano Olivetti and for Alitalia as a cultural advisor; since 1954 you are a correspondent of Art News and a consultant for Art in America. A lot of your work is dedicated to the sweet life, to the international aristocracy, but above all to the art world. ...

'"Sure! One thing does not exclude the other. There were interests regardless of personal relationship. For example, with Clerici we were not really friends, nor with Cagli. Guttuso was a special case, because he was a fascinating man, even though I personally did not agree with his political ideas. I was halfway between the interest in his painting and total rejection. With Scialoja and Burri, however, I had a strong connection.

'You have been a great supporter of Burri at a time when his work created a lot of trouble.

'"What he did was very interesting, especially for that era. On a personal level there was not a friendship like, for example, that with Scialoja, because Burri was not an intellectual, he was a country gentleman who loved to go and kill squirrels. With Scialoja, however, there was an intellectual exchange and even more with his wife Gabriella, who was one of the brightest people among the intellectuals of Rome and an exalted art critic.

'...[Y]our previous apartment, on the Tiber Island, [was where] Michelangelo Antonioni shot the beginning of the film "L'avventura" (1960). What effect did the invasion of the camera ...[have on] you?

'"Camera, wires and cables everywhere ... Antonioni instead was a bit serious. I had known him since he was just starting out and had made a documentary on the collection of waste in Rome. In my apartment they ...[stayed] for two or three days....' Monica Vitti ...[became] an exceptional friend,'


Check the link above for more pictures. Recall Gendel said: "We like animals". 

Here is a photo of Gendel's knick knacks in his studio.