Presenting approximately 350 B/W and colour prints by Salomon, Weegee, Galella, Quinn, Angeli, Secchiaroli, Pigozzi and Newton, the exhibition presents the forerunners and central figures of the “classic” period of Paparrazi Photography—and provides a visual commentary about the evolution of this phenomenon. The exhibition offers an overview and critical look at the history of a photographic genre dedicated to fame and sensationalism. A genre that continues to feed the Yellow Press with exclusive reports on the comings and goings of the jet set in order to push the sales of their publications ever higher.

In a way this all began in the 1930’s with Erich Salomon. A lawyer by training and a self-taught photographer, he gained access to major political events and was the first to secretly take photographs in a courtroom—something that was, and still is, forbidden. No one before him had dared risk doing this. Occasionally he got caught, but he was hardly ever accused.

The term Paparazzi derives from the film La Dolce Vita (1960) by Federico Fellini. The character was modelled after a real person: Tazio Secchiaroli, who later rose to become Fellini’s set photographer. Since the 1960’s Secchiaroli and his colleagues waited nightly, with camera and flash in hand, for prominent victims on Rome’s Via Veneto. About the same time, Edward Quinn and Daniel Angeli were very active in the South of France, mainly on the Cote d’Azur, and often worked with very long lenses.