Jean Gaumy. Bay and Mountain

The exhibition Jean Gaumy. Bay and Mountain presents 44 photographs donated by the famous French photographer Jean Gaumy (Pontaillac, 1948), member of the’Magnum Agency and theInstitut de France (Académie des Beaux-Arts). The exhibition project is promoted by the CRC Foundation and from the Mallé Museum as part of the “Donate”under the patronage of the Municipality of Droneroof the Sampeyre Ethnographic Museumof the Province of Cuneo and the Piedmont Region.

Through the critical texts of Fredo Valla, the exhibition intensively portrays Gaumy's work between 2003 and 2017 in the Cuneo alpine valleys. The first room contains 14 black and white photographs dedicated to mountain landscapes, while the second and third rooms display 30 unpublished colour photographs documenting the Baìo di Sampeyreflanked by traditional costumes e historical videos granted by the Sampeyre History and Ethnography Museum.

The initiative is part of the broader history of the Mallé Museum, which preserves a rich 19th century photographic collection inherited from the families Mallé-Demichelis e Giordano, testifying to an early interest in the language of photography as means of identity representation. Gaumy's works fit naturally into this context, providing a vision powerful and poetic mountain and its traditions.