When the Liberation passed through Siena. The allies entered the city on July 3, 1944, welcomed by the crowd. Among the many black and white images that tell of that moment, there are those of the American photographer Carl Mydans, to whom the exhibition ‘Carl Mydans: a giant of photography in liberated Siena’ is dedicated, curated by Luca Betti, which on Monday 10 at 5.30 pm it will be inaugurated in the Hall of Mirrors of the Accademia dei Rozzi, where it will remain open to visitors until 4 July, in order to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Liberation. The inauguration will be attended by Arcirozzo Alfredo Mandarini, Maurizio Bianchini and Massimiliano Bellavista.
“They are photographs taken by Mydans – explains Bianchini – who was following the allied forces when they entered the city. They are photos that tell of an important moment in Siena, collected in this exhibition which eighty years after the Liberation takes on an even greater significance important for the memory of our city”. As often happens, even in this case there is a lucky discovery behind the initiative.
“I had already published some images of Mydans in 2017 – says Betti – but then without attribution. Then it happened that in a Facebook group dedicated to the Second World War I found the post of a veteran who had returned to Piazza del Campo to do the same photos that Mydans had taken. At that point I looked at the photos and realized that they were his. From that moment I managed to find many others, around two hundred, from which the ones that make up the exhibition were selected.”
Riccardo Bruni
