Just Passing Through | Milton Gendel

A never-before-seen treasure trove of photos and diary entries from the celebrated photographer Milton Gendel that bring Rome's midcentury heyday to life. "I'm just passing through," Milton Gendel liked to say whenever anybody asked him what he was doing in Rome. Even after seven decades in the Eternal City, from his arrival as a Fulbright Scholar in 1949 until his death in 2018 at the age of ninety-nine, he refused to be pigeonholed. He was always an American--never an "expat," never an émigré--but he couldn't leave, so deep were his ties, and this dual bond left an indelible imprint on his life and art. Born in New York City to Russian immigrants, Gendel first made his way to Meyer Schapiro's classroom at Columbia University and then to Greenwich Village, where he and his friend Robert Motherwell joined the circle of surrealists around Peggy Guggenheim and André Breton. But it was Rome that earned his enduring fascination--the city supplied him with endless outlets for his curiosit