“One of the most important works of the neo-realist tendency of the 1950s,” Mario Carrieri’s visceral urban portrait, Milano, Italia, is the product of two years spent photographing “Italy’s largest city in a raw, cinematic style. This was clearly derived from New York [1956], by American photographer William Klein.” In this book’s high-contrast, full-bleed images of Milan, “the most dynamic and least sentimental” city in Italy, Carrieri explores “the city’s grittier aspects, being drawn to the desolate outer suburbs, and even when photographing the city’s glamorous center, he manages to make it look dark and dangerous… At the time he made Milano Carrieri was associated with the Italian neo-realist photographers Cesare Columbo and Mario di Biasi, before he went on to become a distinguished photographer of sculpture”
— Parr & Badger The Photobook: A History Volume I
