Piergiorgio Branzi Biography
Piergiorgio Branzi (Signa, 6 September 1928) is an Italian journalist and photographer. Raised in Florence, he began taking photographs in the 1950s. Trained in the Tuscan figurative tradition, he identifies with "formalist-realism". In 1955 he undertook a long journey by motorcycle, through Abruzzo and Molise, Puglia and Lucania, Calabria and Naples, but also towards the depressed areas of Veneto. The following year he crossed Spain. He collaborates in the editorial experience of Il Mondo di Mario Pannunzio, recording with his images the convulsive birth of mass society, the formalism in the behavior of the new bourgeoisie, the gradual process of consumerist homologation. Towards the end of the fifties, after abandoning his law studies, he slowed down his photographic activity, seeking an outlet in written journalism. At the beginning of the sixties he was hired by RAI. In 1962 the director of the news, Enzo Biagi, sent him to Moscow, as a Western television correspondent in the Soviet capital. In 1966 he left Moscow to take up the position of Paris correspondent. After May 1968, he returned to Rome as a presenter and special correspondent for the news. He makes investigations and documentaries in Europe, Asia and Africa. He was director of the RAI headquarters in Florence in the 70s and 80s. After his Moscow experience he left photography to experiment with painting and engraving. He resumed photography in the mid-nineties for a revisitation of Pasolini's places. Since 2007 he has been experimenting with the possibilities of digital technology. Numerous personal exhibitions of his images have been hosted in private galleries, museums and public institutions.
