Ivan Dalla Tana (1950-2011) started darkroom work early, only 13 years old, searched for his own printing style and was inspired by gold prints. He passed away in 2011.
From: New York, USA and Milano, Italy.
Shows: Gold process.
Ivan Dalla Tana started work in the darkroom early, only 13 years old, when he started helping Luigi Ciminaghi, Piccolo Teatro’s official photographer. Ivan’s mother was the theater’s dressmaker.
Ivan later worked for important photographers such as Gianfranco Gorgoni, who asked him to follow him in New York, where Ivan printed the photographs for a book, Running Fence by Christo.
Dalla Tana settled in New York as art photographer and photographic printer, contributing to several artists like Klaus Oldenburg, Jean Michel Basquiat, Malcom Morley, Keith Haring and many others.
By the end of the 80s, he starts searching for a new printing style, inspired by a golden reject found in his trashcan. Affected by that vision, he created a chemical formula for printing that has a special golden effect.
“What I love about the gold process is the beauty of gold, peculiarly of the colour and the most striking emotion for me is th painting effect given by such prints.”
Back to Milano in 1996, he opened his lab, Darkroom Project, where people from all over the world come for his prints. In 2009, he is invited to give a course and teach his printing techniques at the Alfred University, New York State, from January to March. He passed away in 2011.