Mirella Ricciardi
EXPOSITION “VANISHING AFRICA” du 17 avril au 27 mai 2008
Born in Kenya, then still a colony of British East Africa, to an Italian father and a French mother, Mirella Ricciardi grew up on the shores of Lake Naivasha in a household which was both sophisticated and wild.
She was married at twenty-five to the Italian adventurer Lorenzo Ricciardi,
who swept her off her feet and hired her as the photographer on the film he
was making in East Africa. She bore him two children, both girls. Marina,
their eldest daughter, died of cancer at the age of thirty-six.
Mirella's first book, Vanishing Africa, was published in 1971. An international
bestseller, it made her reputation; one reviewer wrote that it was 'a masterpiece
of photographic excellence'. She has since published four other photographic
books. Having finally severed her umbilical tie to the African continent,
she now lives for part of the year on an anonymous London street in the shadow
of the Chelsea Football Club stadium in Fulham. Her nondescript terraced house
has been turned into an African haven filled with light, African artefacts
and rambling plants.
The pair of black buffalo horns, which for years hung above the front door,
were removed when Lorenzo moved back to Italy. They now commute between their
two homes.
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