Gaetano Mansi (July 20, 1956) is an Italian fashion and portrait photographer.
Career
He started his career in Salerno, working as an assistant for Studio Segno, advertising agency founded by Pino Grimaldi. In the Seventies his main professional field was reportage. He is coauthor of Missus est Angelus, a photographic essay on John Paul II. The magazine Il Tempo Illustrato publishes his images of Rino Mele's avant-garde theater. In 1978 he contributes to the exhibit "Autodocumentazione". He gets a degree in Art History with a thesis on the history of fashion photography.
In 1980 he contributed to the documentation of the earthquake in Irpinia (November 23, 1980) flying over the disaster area on a helicopter. His reportages are published by the weekly magazine Epoca as well as many international periodicals. He takes part in the recognition of the historical buildings in Campania promoted by the Department of Restoration of Naples University. His works are also published by british Condé Nast House&Garden. With Alessandro Pinto he publishes the books Cilento and La Costa dei Miti.
In the Nineties he starts to work for Il Venerdì di Repubblica with portraits and reportages: among the others a shooting on Eva Herzigova in the Bahamas. While in Jerusalem for Il Venerdì he is assaulted and wounded by a terrorist. He is one of the very few surviving Westerners in the Intifada. He is coauthor of the book on the history of fashion photography La Fotografia di Moda tra Immagine e Rappresentazione.
From the year 2000 on he focuses exclusively on fashion, shooting in Italy and abroad for advertising campaigns and fashion magazines.
He contributed to the volume Corso di Fotografia and prints the books 40 Volte Bianca, PassingThrough, CentoAsaGrana & Pixels. His exhibition "Grana & Pixels" takes places in Rome in 2017. It consists of 300 billboards posted all over the city of Rome linked to an app that geolocalizes every one of them.
From 2018 he is a contributor for Diva e Donna magazine, with Daniela Rosa Cattaneo as fashion director.
Style
Gaetano Mansi's style has been influenced by the different genres he experimented through the years. He prefers to shoot on location, often employing mixed light, natural and artificial. His images are almost always dynamic, never posing, with a particular attention to lighting and composition.
Books
Missus est Angelus, Il Laboratorio Edizioni, 1978, A day with Pope John Paul II
Cilento, Comunità Montana Gelbison e Cervati, 1981
Oltre il Terremoto, Assessorato Pubblica Istruzione e Beni Culturali, 1982, Pictures from Irpinia Earthquake
La Costa dei Miti, Comunità Montana Lambro Mingardo, 1982
Styles of living, the best of Casa Vogue, Rizzoli, New York, 1985
La fotografia di moda tra immagine e rappresentazione, EleaPress, 1992, A short history of fashion photography
Corso Di Fotografia, National Geographic/Editoriale La Repubblica, 2000, Photography techniques
40 Volte Bianca, Marte Editrice, 2008
Passing Through, Marte Editrice, 2013
CentoAsa, Marte Editrice, 2017
Grana & Pixels, Marte Editrice, 2017
Faces and Souls, Caratteri, 2021
40 Volte Bianca, Caratteri-Made in Italy, 2022
54x70, Caratteri, 2022
Volti e Anime, Marte Editrice, 2022
Zoe Factory, la fabbrica della bellezza, Caratteri, 2024
Melluso, settanta anni di immagini iconiche, Caratteri-Made in Italy, 2024