LIBRARY

Includes the volumes that Lanfranco Colombo in 2003 donated together with the photographic collection to the Region of Lombardy, which in turn deposited them at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. It is an important and very large collection, formed over the years in close connection with Lanfranco Colombo's work as director of Milan's Il Diaframma Gallery and publisher. It counts 8,061 volumes, some very rare, documenting about 7,000 names among photographers and curators of monographs; about a third of the texts have autograph dedications by the authors. With few exceptions, the volumes were printed between 1967 and 2000 and collectively offer a broad overview of the state of photography in Italy, Europe, Central and South America, Russia, and China.

Acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the collection has about 800 volumes published between 1970 and 2000. It consists of significant monographs documenting 255 photographers (82 Italians and 173 foreigners). Completing the collection are an appendix of 27 volumes on fashion and costume and issues of 4 specialist magazines: “Twen” (1964/71), “Photo” (1976/84), “Nova” (1966/75), “Life” (1978/84). The collection, with a pronounced anthological character, brings together the most representative names of 20th century photography, in all genres of photography.

It was donated by Antonio Arcari's daughter Silvia to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in 2006.
There are 229 volumes, printed between 1940 and 1999, collected until 1984 by Arcari himself and later by his daughter. A few issues of three magazines complete the collection: “Du Atlantis” (1964/76), “Life International” (1962/70) and “Photo magazin” (1956/69). The collection consists of essays and manuals on the history, criticism and technique of photography and monographs by Italian and foreign authors, with a predilection for reportage and research photography of the 1950s-70s. There are also books documenting Arcari's interest in cinema, German and Russian in particular. Also part of the collection are notes, drafts and writings, articles, correspondence and personal letters documenting his critical activity in the years 1950-1970.

It was donated by the photographer's heirs to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in 2006, along with the photographic archive. It has about 100 books and includes rare and valuable monographs, with an emphasis on French reportage, Italian neorealism, and research and avant-garde photography. Also included in the collection are the Italian Photography Yearbook (19 issues between 1964 and 2000) and several yearbooks and trade magazines: “Fawecett Book” (1959), “Photography Annual” (1957/67, 1970, 1976/77, 1979/81), “Popular Photography Color Annual” (1957/59), “Skema,” “Photography Year Book” (1951, 1960/67, 1969, 1973, 1975/78, 1980), “Foto Almanach,” “Creative photographs,” “U. S. Camera” (1961,1963). Documentary materials such as correspondences, exhibition brochures, invitations, notes, newspapers and magazines, photocopies of articles, writings, maps, and travel diaries of the photographer complete the collection.

It was donated by the photographer to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in October 2007. It includes about 1,500 books, with a wealth of subjects: photography and film, painting, architecture, psychiatry, work, travel, folklore. There are about 400 books on photography, with classics in the history and criticism of photography and rare monographs by Italian and foreign authors of the 20th century. Of considerable interest are sixty or so essays by Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco, Ernst Gombrich, Mauro Mancia, Marshall Mc Luhan, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, René Berger, Dino Formaggio, Wassily Kandinsky and other scholars analyzing the relationship between image, language and communication. Also present are volumes by small, embattled publishers who have enriched cultural debate in the humanities and visual arts since the 1970s, and about 150 volumes summarizing 30 years of the feminist movement in Italy.

Federico Patellani's entire photographic archive and library was given in 1998 by his son Aldo on a 20-year loan for use to the Region of Lombardy, which deposited it at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. The library holdings essentially include archive materials (notes, travel notes, maps, books, and issues of magazines with which Patellani collaborated, first and foremost “Tempo”). It includes monographs of great photojournalists contemporary with him and others, both Italian and foreign, and manuals on photographic technique.

The library of the Grazia Neri photo agency was donated to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in 2009, after the agency closed, along with the analog photo archive: about 1,200 volumes. mostly devoted to social, nature and travel photojournalism, both Italian and international. The volumes cover a time span from the 1980s to the present, offering a broad panorama of world history over the past four decades.