Photo Archive

The Photo Archive of Turin’s Musei Civici was established thanks to Vittorio Viale, director of the Musei Civici from 1930 to 1965, who at the start of his mandate wanted to create an archive whose mission would be to display the Museum’s heritage, monuments in general, and art objects from Piedmont, both ancient and modern, thus offering an important tool for research and study.

Today the Archive is part of the Fondazione Torino Musei and gathers multiple material, photo negatives and positives on several kinds of format like glass plates, film, paper (monochrome and color), and digital. The archive boasts around 400,000 phototypes.

The Photo Archive at the Fondazione Torino Musei holds historical photo collections but also documentary images of the Museum’s heritage; in both cases the collections are in part reproduced on glass plates, film, and, since 2005, digitally.

As regards historical photography, most came from Turin’s Musei Civici whereas a small part came at a later stage mainly through donations. The collections are of historical, artistic, and documentary interest and consist of varying subject matter (artistic heritage and views of the city and Piedmont, wartime events, industries at the dawn of the century, daily life, important figures).

Among the main historical collections are the works by the Piedmont photographer Stefano Bricarelli, a major witness to the development of Italian photography in the 1900s, with special attention to automobiles, and the important group of works relating to the practice of Mario Gabinio and his main topics of interest like Turin’s architecture and the mountainside.

Instead, the documentary photos concern the three Museum venues of the Fondazione Torino Musei and their relating collections of paintings, sculptures, prints, decorative arts, furnishings, restorations, and exhibitions installed in their museums; there is also a rich collection of prints and drawings by Alfredo de Andrade, Alessandro Antonelli, and Carlo Ceppi.

The Photo Archive is located at GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea on Via Magenta 31 and is open to the public from Monday to Friday by appointment only. Please contact the staff below who can best respond to your requests, even as regards publications:

Barbara Nepote
Tel. 011/4429554 | E-mail barbara.nepote@fondazionetorinomusei.it

• Requests for publication of works belonging to the collections at Palazzo Madama - Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, MAO Museo d'Arte Orientale and GAM - Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, the Guido and Ettore De Fornaris Foundation, and CRT on deposit at GAM.
• Requests for publication from the Historical Photo Collections (Avondo, Bricarelli, Ceppi, D'Andrade, Gabinio, and others).
• Consulting the Mario Gabinio Photo Collection.

Elena Dolino
Tel 011/4429557 | E-mail elena.dolino@fondazionetorinomusei.it

• Verifying and incrementing the iconographic heritage regarding ancient art, Palazzo Madama, Borgo Medioevale, Museo d'Arte Orientale.
• Consulting the Brinckmann, Mallé, Rovere, Viale, and Historical Collections.
• Verifying and incrementing the iconographic heritage regarding the works of modern and contemporary art belonging to the collections at GAM, the Guido and Ettore De Fornaris Foundation, and the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – CRT on deposit at GAM.
• Photo heritage of the Stefano Bricarelli Collection.

Assunta Caruso
Tel 011/4429558 | E-mail assunta.caruso@fondazionetorinomusei.it

• Iconographic heritage regarding the GAM print collections (Alfredo d’Andrade Collection) and the Vittorio Avondo Photo Collection (Photo Archive).
• Photo heritage of the Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia (on deposit at the Photo Archive at the Fondazione Torino Musei).
• Consulting collections and organizational support in curating the collections at the Drawings and Prints Library.

Mery Granata
Tel 0114429556 | E-mail mery.granata@fondazionetorinomusei.it

• Iconographic heritage regarding installations and exhibitions.

Download and fill in the request forms, for publication and for research purposes, as well as the guidelines.