Vittorio Storaro: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A black-and-white gelatin silver photograph titled “Vittorio Storaro” by John Simmons. The photograph captures Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s artwork “The Cardsharps,” of three men during a card game. The man on the left is expensively dressed and holding cards in his hand, the man on the right is the cardsharp, and the man in the middle is the cardsharp’s helper, peeking and signaling the expensively dressed man’s cards. In the bottom right corner of the photograph is a reflection of Italian cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, who is highly influenced by Caravaggio’s paintings.

The photographer signed the photograph in the lower right corner in black ink [John Simmons, ASC] and the title, location, and year are written in the lower left corner [Vittorio Storano @ UCLA 2008].

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 2008
• Photograph by: John Simmons, American, born 1950
• Subject of: Vittorio Storaro, Italian, born 1940
• Type: gelatin silver prints
• Type: photographs
• Medium: silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper
• Dimensions: H x W (image): 14 × 8 in. (35.6 × 20.3 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W (sheet): 19 × 13 in. (48.3 × 33 cm)
• Place captured: Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Art
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Photography
• Object number: 2023.39.46
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Estate of Carroll Parrott Blue
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © John Simmons Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.