Domencio Ricardo Peretti Griva

Coassolo Torinese, November 28th 1882 – Turin, July 12th 1962

In the arts, he was one of the main exponents of the Italian pictorialist movement in the world, in the period from 1920 to 1950. Trained in the Piedmontese School of Artistic Photography, he proposed the concepts of pictorialism, focusing particularly on the theme of nature, up to following the movement of the straight photography producing intimate portraits of the petty bourgeoisie of the period.

Particularly fond of the bromoil technique , where he intervened by manually retouching accentuating the blur and the contrast, he used the silver bromide technique less frequently . He exhibited frequently in Italy and abroad, resulting in first place among Italians in the 1950s according to the estimates of the Annual Photography.

As a jurist, he also published numerous volumes of law and pursued an important career as a magistrate: he was deputy commissioner for the purge after the Liberation, first president of the Court of Appeal of Turin. Retired as Honorary Section President of the Court of Cassation.
Some decisions taken under his presidency by the Court of Appeal of Turin caused a sensation, recognizing the validity in Italy of divorces obtained abroad by Italian citizens when divorce was still considered illegal in Italy. During fascism, as a magistrate he tempered the application of racial laws, even going against the Cassation. Finally, in 1945, he participated in the liberation struggle and was imprisoned by the Germans.

• Antique bromoil print – Available on June Live Auction 2023