Death will come and will have your eyes 1966/68

This series takes its title from Cesare Pavese’s poem Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes. It draws from two periods when Mario Giacomelli photographed the hospice in Senigallia: the first from 1954 to 1956, and the second from 1966 to 1968.

"Of all the things I’ve done, this is my most interesting project; I felt more here than in all my other work combined," Giacomelli reflected. "Why, after battling all your life, must it end like this? These absurd institutions… These photographs are more realist, even in their technique. I printed on heavier paper, with stark cropping, creating images that feel more real. Yet, my goal wasn’t to expose what I saw, but what grew inside me: the fear of aging, not of dying, and disgust at the price we pay at life’s end. Over time, I became one of them. They no longer noticed the camera I carried."
(A.C. Quintavalle, Mario Giacomelli, Feltrinelli, 1980)

For Giacomelli, these images were a way to confront reality. His stark frames, decontextualized by close cropping and harsh contrast, cut to the essence of pain and loneliness. The biting flash and abyssal blacks emphasize the isolation of the elderly subjects, abandoned in their final years.

This sensitivity to suffering stemmed from Giacomelli’s childhood experiences. His mother, Libera, widowed early, worked as a laundress in the Senigallia hospice, often taking him with her. His daughter, Rita, recalls her grandmother’s work:

"My father’s hospice photos tried to access the pain of those abandoned lives. I remember my grandmother taking me into the cold, damp laundry room, where basins of dirty linens overflowed onto the floor. The laundresses had no gloves, and the water was cold. I watched her at her trocco (platform), surrounded by the stench of sweat, soap, and stained sheets. She seemed so small and vulnerable."
(Rita Giacomelli, unpublished notes)

This intimate connection with hardship shaped Giacomelli’s unflinching gaze. The series reveals not only the desolation of his subjects but also his own confrontation with mortality and the fragility of human dignity.

(Adapted from Katiuscia Biondi text)