In Lost Venice (Damiani), photographer Sarah Hadley presents an alluring and haunting portrayal of this majestic city as distilled through her personal lens of loss and nostalgia. By contemplating the temporal beauty of Venice, Hadley examines our own impermanence and the uncertain future of this unique city.
Hadley’s love of Venice was nurtured by her childhood spent living in an apartment above the Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, where her father served as the museum’s director. Designed to look like a Venetian palazzo, the building reflected her father’s passion for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, which Hadley would later embrace. Her father introduced her to Venice, and they made many trips there from her childhood through early young adult years. Tragically, these trips ended abruptly following her father’s sudden premature death from a heart attack when she was in her mid-twenties.
In Lost Venice, Hadley’s photographs guide us on a journey through foggy days and veiled nights through the mysterious hidden corners of the city and outlying islands, all the while examining her deep connection with this opulent and mythic place.
In her foreword, Karen E. Hass, Lane Curator of Photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, writes about Hadley’s emotional journey that culminated in the publication of Lost Venice:
“ … Sarah searched for and ultimately found, solace and inspiration. Walking its narrow passageway and out-of-the-way neighborhoods, she was drawn to record such things as the shadowy silhouettes of figures disappearing into the mist, cloudy skies and birds reeling above tall dark buildings, and softly lit interiors creating reflections on water at night. All of these details the artist transformed into evocative sepia-toned images that seem to glow from withon as though permanently captured in amber.”
Lost Venice includes an illuminating conversation between Sarah Hadley and Susan Burnstine, an award-winning fine art photographer, accomplished educator, and the author of two monographs as well as a monthly column for Black and White Photography Magazine (UK).
Sarah Hadley studied Art History and Italian at Georgetown University and Photography at the Corcoran College of Art and has been a photographer for over 25 years. Her award-winning work has been exhibited in museums, galleries and institutions in the US, as well as in international fairs and festivals in Europe and Asia.
Sarah Hadley : Lost Venice
Foreword by Karen E. Haas
Interview with Susan Burnstine
Damiani Editore
Hardbound
ISBN 978-88-6208-706-3
18.3 x 23.3 cm | 7 1⁄5 x 9 1⁄6 inches
56 pages, 25 color and b&w,
April 2020 $35 | €29 | £30
https://www.damianieditore.com/
