Vasco Ascolini

Vasco Ascolini (Reggio Emilia, 1937-2026) is one of the most important contemporary Italian photographers, deeply attached to his city, where he lived and worked throughout his life.

His artistic career started here: from the 1960s onwards, Ascolini developed an original photographic style, characterized by an intense use of black and white and a poetic, almost metaphysical vision of reality.

In his theatre photography, with a strong preference for dance and mime, the human figure dominates; through the complete elimination of intermediate tonal gradations, it is transformed into a plastically fixed body, almost an object, a statue.
During the ‘marble’ period, these earlier lines were adapted into a stylized expression.
His CV includes exhibitions in the world’s most important museums.

But it is mainly in Reggio Emilia that he built an essential part of his career, becoming the official photographer of the "Romolo Valli" Municipal Theatre from 1973 to 1990.

Amidst stages, rehearsals and performances, Ascolini captures the very essence of theatre: dance, mime and performance become images frozen in time, now preserved in the world’s most prestigious museums, from New York to Paris.

The link with the city was renewed in the following years.
Reggio Emilia continues to celebrate his work through exhibitions, events and significant donations: a collection of hundreds of photographs is now part of the city’s heritage, telling a real ‘biography in pictures’ of the artist.