Anthony Di Gesu

Place: Calatafimi

Born: 1913

Death: 1993

Biography:

Antony di Gesu was a photographer known for his portraits of famous people. He learned the trade of portraiture in the last days of vaudeville in New York City during the 1930s. His portraits of ordinary people from his studio in Brooklyn led to sittings with writers, musicians, scientists, politicians, artists and actors in Manhattan during 1950s and 1960s, and in turn resulted in a large amount of work examining San Diegans between 1971 and 1993. A pioneer in the use of color in portraiture, di Gesu used color to evoke the rich texture of his subject’s presence and used his skills as a communicator to coax his subjects into revealing themselves for the camera. He was commissioned to photograph prominent members of the Arts for the cover of the Saturday Review, an important magazine of literature, criticism and the arts. He also photographed J.D. Salinger in 1952 and was knighted by President Segni and the Government of Italy in 1963 as a result of his portraits of United Nations Ambassadors.