Italiano
Press Conference to Present the Photography Exhibition
The Gaze Within, the Gaze Without… the Gaze Where?
with works by Manlio Villoresi and Mimmo Dabbrescia
Friday, October 3, 2025 – 6:30 p.m.
Sala Conte Biancamano
National Museum of Science and Technology
(entrance via Via Olona 6 – Milan)
“The Gaze Within, the Gaze Without… the Gaze Where?” is the title of an extraordinary exhibition dedicated to Manlio Villoresi and Mimmo Dabbrescia. Eighty works by these two great photographers will be on view at the National Museum of Science and Technology (entrance via Via Olona 6) from October 4 to October 26, 2025.
Two distinct narrative styles, two artists who never met, yet here they engage in an ongoing dialogue through photographic portraits—their shared medium—though from different perspectives. If Villoresi maintained an intense relationship with the photographed subject, an “inner” gaze, Dabbrescia instead allows his subjects to look elsewhere, giving space to the “outer” world.
The exhibition is curated by Andrea Ciresola, cultural heritage restorer, artist, writer and blogger, and Carola Annoni di Gussola, art expert and consultant for the Villoresi Poggi Foundation. The catalog’s afterword, “Manlio and Mimmo, Parallel Convergences,” is written by journalist and photo editor Giovanna Calvenzi. The show is organized by the Fondazione Villoresi Poggi, with the support of Musei in Comune di Roma, Museo di Roma, and Art D2 Modern and Contemporary Art.
Who is Manlio Villoresi
Manlio Villoresi (1891–1976), after apprenticing in his father’s photography studio in Città di Castello (Perugia), moved to Rome where he opened his own studio and soon became the photographer of choice for artists and the Roman high society.
Between the 1920s and 1940s, his studios—first at Piazza Barberini 12 and later at Via Vittorio Veneto 96—hosted cultural luminaries, film actors, musicians, opera singers, aristocrats, sports figures and politicians.
In 1925, King Vittorio Emanuele III appointed him Knight Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy, and ten years later Commander. Upon his death, he left a collection of 1,570 silver-bromide glass plates (13×18 cm) to the Photo Archive of the Museo di Roma.
Who is Mimmo Dabbrescia
Mimmo (Domenico) Dabbrescia, born in Barletta, Apulia, in 1938 and later based in Milan, began his career with Fedele Toscani (father of Oliviero Toscani) and became the youngest photojournalist ever hired by Corriere della Sera, invited by Dino Buzzati and Alfredo Pigna. He also worked for La Domenica del Corriere and the newly founded Amica magazine before opening his own photography agency.
Dabbrescia traveled the world, producing reportage from the United States, the USSR and Canada. In the 1960s and 1970s he photographed the Beatles, Joe Cocker, Clint Eastwood, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, as well as Eugenio Montale and Dino Buzzati.
He published numerous photographic books featuring figures such as Dalí, Guttuso, De Chirico, Baj, Music, Hartung, Migneco, Dova, Sassu, and Salvatore Fiume. In the mid-1970s he founded, with Bruna Coradini, the publishing house Edizioni Brixia and the art, culture and photography magazine Prospettive d’Arte, which he directed for nearly twenty years.
The Works on Display
The eighty works selected and now exhibited at the National Museum of Science and Technology portray many notable figures.
Among Dabbrescia’s portraits are Fabrizio De André, Mina, Francis Bacon, Eugenio Montale, Clint Eastwood, Salvador Dalí, Lucio Dalla, Giorgio de Chirico, Dino Buzzati, César (César Baldaccini), Valentino, and Carlos Santana.
Villoresi, for his part, signed portraits of Anna Magnani, Vittorio Gassman, Aldo Di Lazzaro, Maria Mercader, Massimo Girotti, Isa Barsizza, Eleonora Duse, Franca Faldini, Domenico Modugno, Dina Sassoli, and Gigi Villoresi, among others.
Speakers
The press conference will feature photographer Mimmo Dabbrescia; Valerio Villoresi, descendant of Manlio Villoresi; curators Andrea Ciresola and Carola Annoni di Gussola; and journalist and photo editor Giovanna Calvenzi. The discussion will be moderated by journalist Saverio Paffumi.
“It is the decision to steal glances, the figure, the intimacy that creates the vertigo in certain photographic images. Here there is no mediation because there is no interlocutor; the subject’s body, even when solid and composed, seems to express an unspoken clarity and tries to describe it in words. The only way seems to be through oxymorons,” observes Andrea Ciresola.
“His exhibition also tells the story of photography’s evolution over two-thirds of a century: from the rigor and artistry of Manlio Villoresi’s studio, where the portrait becomes a golden icon, to the freer, more dynamic dimension of Mimmo Dabbrescia, who takes the camera into the streets of the world, transforming faces into expressions of glamour and contemporaneity. Two visions apparently distant, yet in dialogue as complementary moments of the same story: a language in constant transformation, reflecting the spirit of the times and leaving us a living memory—as well as showing how we choose to look at reality,” emphasizes Carola Annoni di Gussola.
“In the sequence of gazes a story of intense faces emerges—one the two authors certainly did not foresee. Villoresi seems to favor the ‘inner’ gaze, suggesting an intimate relationship between photographer and subject; Dabbrescia prefers his subjects to look ‘outward,’ capturing them almost unawares as they observe the surrounding environment,” explains Giovanna Calvenzi in her afterword.
“This exhibition is a unique opportunity to recount the evolution of photography: from the studio shots of a great photographer of Roman society like Manlio Villoresi to photography using more modern, dynamic means. It allowed me to travel and to photograph political figures and cultural icons of the era, as well as artists and singers—especially the latter—often portraying them in their homes, studios, outdoors, and during their travels and world tours. Just as Manlio used his studio and adjoining salon as a meeting place and venue for parties with clients and friends, so I, with my camera, have told in my reports the more personal and human aspects of the people I encountered over fifty years of photographic career,” notes Mimmo Dabbrescia.
“The Fondazione Villoresi Poggi—promoter of the exhibition—is dedicated to preserving and passing on the memory of the ancestors of founders Giuseppe Villoresi and Piergiovanni Poggi, who contributed to Italy’s sporting, scientific and cultural progress. Among them, Manlio Villoresi stands as a quiet yet incisive protagonist of Italian culture and art. His elegance, discreet and never ostentatious, was a form of respect: for himself, for others, and for time. In an age that often privileges noise and appearance, his example shows how true strength lies in restraint, in sobriety, and in the ability to leave a deep mark without clamor. With this perspective, I am also pursuing a historical novel dedicated to him, now nearing completion, to offer a broader view of his figure and his legacy,” says Valerio Villoresi.
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