In Paris, on the Rue du Roi de Sicile, in the Marais, an Italian bookstore is presenting in its small gallery twenty photographs by one of the most celebrated Italian photojournalists. This is a rare opportunity not to be missed. The exhibition closes on December 15.

I hadn’t seen Mario Dondero for decades. Back then, Mario was deeply involved in the city’s artistic and intellectual scenes. A freelance photographer, he was known to young people not only for this great works of reportage and portraits of celebrities, but for his involvement with the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

We didn’t associate his name with the photographs that made him famous in France, the writers of the nouveau roman pounding the pavement outside the offices of the publishing house Éditions de Minuit, but with his portraits of Communist leaders, and his travels to Africa for Epoca, L’Hunita and l’Humanité Dimanche.

Mario, as we all called him, was twenty years our senior. But he was one of those few experienced photographers who didn’t look down on our generation, the youngsters born of the protests of May 1968. He took an interest in us, and didn’t consider it beneath him to join us for a “little glass of Sauvignon.” Without pontificating, he encouraged us in the fight of our day: to respect the rights of photographers—an endless battle.

To celebrate his 80th birthday, many of his journalist, writer and photographer friends organized a large retrospective of his work and a small book containing their memories. He’s still working in Italy (he lives in Fermo, in the Marche region), and travels regularly while reporting for La Repubblica and Il diario della settimana. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions in Italy and abroad, notably in Brussels in 2009 and London in 2011.

But in Paris, where he spent much of his life, he is shamefully underappreciated by the younger generation. It was time that a Parisian institution to pay tribute to one of Italy’s most Parisian photographers.

Michel Puech

Read the full text of this article on the French version of Le Journal.

Mario Dondero
Until December 15th, 2012
Librairie Italienne
10 Rue du Roi de Sicile
75004 Paris
France
T : +33 (0)1 42 77 32 40