Sophia Loren - The Myth of Beauty Drawn with Light

Edition: Bilingual (Text in English and Italian)

The book, like the related exhibition, is part of the strand of events that the m.a.x. museo cyclically devotes to photography. It presents a broad range of iconic images of Sophia Loren, which portray her at special moments in her life, during the filming of her famous movies or on more personal occasions, portrayed by some of the twentieth century’s greatest photo­graphers. Organised on thematic-chronological principles, the illustrations present a total of almost 200 photographs, mostly vintage, embracing the full span of Sophia Loren’s life and conveying the profound feelings that the diva aroused in both her films (over a hundred) and her life.

The book is divided into seven sections: starting from the Naples of the Origins, the city where Sofia Lazzaro Scicolone, as she was known, lived with her mother and experienced the first difficulties of life, moving on to cinema with photographs of Screenplays, then to elegance and its particular relationship with art. This is followed by the parts of the exhibition devoted to public encounters and important awards received, and then those that capture her in more intimate moments with her family. The exhibition closes with a series of images expressing the identification of Loren with an Icon of Beauty. There is also an in-depth study of the relationship between Sophia Loren and Salvatore Ferragamo, and later Giorgio Armani, documented through photographs and designer objects such as the refined shoes from the Ferragamo Museum in Florence.