Historical Museum of the Landing in Sicily 1943
The exhibition was inaugurated on September 25, 2018
Looking beyond the war
1942-1943
The photographic exhibition “Lo sguardo oltre la guerra. Phil Stern Photographer 1942-1943”, curated by Ezio Costanzo and created by the Oelle Foundation in collaboration with the Metropolitan City of Catania, displays unpublished images from Phil Stern’s personal archive on the Second World War.
The exhibition collects photographs taken by Stern during Operation Torch, the campaign of occupation of North Africa between 1942 and 1943, where Stern, at just 23 years old, immortalized key moments of the battles. His images do not limit themselves to documenting the war, but also capture visual elements that offer a broader and more powerful narrative of the entire historical moment.
During the event, the book “SnapDragon – The World War II exploits of Darby’s Ranger and combat photographer Phil Stern” by Liesl Bradner was presented in national preview. The author was present.
“Looking beyond the war 1942/1943 Unpublished photos by Phil Stern” presents a series of unpublished photographs by Phil Stern taken during the Second World War that contain compositional elements that go beyond the ritual documentation of the war event. The gaze of the young American photographer, in fact, lingers not only on aspects of military life but also on the context that surrounds him, immortalizing the environment and the people with whom he interacts, managing to capture moments of extreme compositional beauty. The images presented in the exhibition are part of the American photographer’s personal archive of the Second World War (about three thousand negatives) that the Stern family entrusted to the historian Ezio Costanzo for cataloguing, care and study. The OELLE Foundation was responsible for the digitization of the important archive, and with this further commitment it will increase the existing collection of the Phil Stern Pavilion, also creating an exhibition space within it capable of hosting other photographic exhibitions related to the theme of the Second World War and the specificities of the Landing Museum that hosts it.
