From 18 December 2021, the Civic Museums of Bassano del Grappa will be offering the first Italian retrospective of Ruth Orkin (1921-1985), a legendary figure of a photojournalist but also an American filmmaker, author of the independent feature film "Little Fugitive", made together with her husband Morris Engel, awarded the Silver Lion at the 1953 Venice Film Festival.

Orkin's work arrives in Italy to coincide with the centenary of the photographer's birth (1921), recently honored by a retrospective in New York and Toronto and by a monograph by Hatije & Cantz. After Bassano (the only Italian stop), the anthology, created together with DiChroma Photography, will begin a European tour and is expected in San Sebastian, Spain, and Cascais, Portugal.

To announce this, which for the world of photography is a real event, is the new director of the Civic Museums of Bassano Barbara Guidi: «I am very pleased to present the work of this protagonist of twentieth century photography. Her ability to blend together, in a perfect and mysterious alchemy, the engaging strength of the story and the freshness of the moment captured on the fly, makes her one of the most fascinating artists of the last century ».

Ruth Orkin's images are intense interpretations, whatever the subject of her gaze: illustrious characters from the Hollywood or New York world - such as Robert Capa, Lauren Bacall, Albert Einstein or Woody Allen - or situations of extraordinarily ordinary life. Emblematic are her images taken perpendicularly from the window of her apartment on Central Park or the famous "American Girl in Italy", an icon of twentieth century photography that has the distinction of being the second best-selling poster in the world and which still today, at the time of “Mee too”, encourages heated discussions on the subject of sexism.