Society

The Italians by Bruno Barbey

Critically-acclaimed photographer Bruno Barbey's testament to Italian society during the 1960s

Bruno Barbey

Bruno Barbey | The Italians Children and a beggar. Naples, Italy. 1962. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Men on Ostia beach. Rome, Italy. 1964. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Men on leave from military service. Lazio, Rome, Italy. 1963. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A group gathers in Lazio, Rome, Italy. 1966. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Men play billiards in the town of Caltanissetta. Sicily, Italy. 1963. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Men seen through the windows of a car. Milan, Italy. 1964. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A girl's first communion in the region of Campania. Naples, Italy. 1966. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Man at rest in a café in the Lombardia region. Milan, Italy. 1966. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A boy reclines on the wreckage of a ruined car. Rome, Italy. 1962. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Boys with rifles. Rome, Italy. 1964. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A man in bed in the Campania region. Naples, Italy. 1963. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A priest wearing spectacles in Naples, Italy. 1964. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians Lazio, Rome, Italy. 1966. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians A woman, two children and a man in Rome, Italy. 1964. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos
Bruno Barbey | The Italians An elderly woman and a man with bread. Naples, Italy. 1966. © Bruno Barbey | Magnum Photos

The Italians is an evocative collection of Barbey’s modern Commedia dell’arte of beggars, priests, nuns, carabinieri, prostitutes and mafiosi. Archetypal figures whose exotic charms helped to make the films of Pasolini, Visconti and Fellini so popular. The resulting images were published into a book that stands as a testament to the life and times of Italy in the 1960s.

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