The Years of La Dolce Vita – An exhibition capturing the sweet life

1960s Rome was one of the most romantic and explosive periods in contemporary Italian cinema and the glamour of celebrity. The era has held a great allure and charisma even until today, decades later. An exhibition has brought this seductive age to the London Estorick Collection gallery running until the end of June.

The exhibition features some of the most beautiful and captivating images captured during the sixties of some of the most iconic and stunning movie stars and celebrities of the time. This was the time of the true Hollywood movie star during the Golden Age, where glamour and elegance ruled.

The images included in the exhibition were taken by an Italian press photographer, Marcello Geppetti, in the sixties. The 80 black and white photographs account icons like Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Mansfield and Audrey Hepburn recreating in the glamorous bars and restaurants lining Rome’s most elite and fashionable streets.

Geppetti is also said to have been a part of the inspiration for the character Paparazzo, a photographer veering through the streets on a scooter to catch a sight of the illustrious lives of the rich and famous, in Federico Fellini’s 1960 classic Italian film La Dolce Vita.

The exhibition, titled The Years of La Dolce Vita: The Birth of Celebrity Culture in Focus, also includes the infamous image of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor engaged in a passionate kiss while vacationing on a boat off the Italian coast. Their relationship mesmerised the world with their fiery and turbulent marriage after meeting on the sets of the movie, Cleopatra, in 1963.

The appeal of Geppetti’s images is that they capture the scintillating fast-life that gave rise to the obsession with celebrity that still prevails today – although Hollywood, unfortunately, might have lost some of that lustre.

Julian Lennon pays tribute to his father through pictures

Julian Lennon has had quite a name to live up to being the only child of the late John Lennon and the now 74-year-old Cynthia Powell, John's first wife. Yet he has always viewed life differently despite, or perhaps because of, his journey being so unique and remarkable. Although he is mostly known as a singer-songwriter, musician and producer, Julian actually has many other talents and interests, including that of being a documentary film producer, philanthropist, and a fine art photographer.

As a tribute to his father and The Beatles, Julian has become the curator of an exhibit commemorating The Beatles’ 50^th anniversary of their first U.S. tour. Julian’s eye for photocomposition and aestheticism brings a unique Beatles collection to the public at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York displayed from February 7^th to the 28^th. What sets this exhibit apart from others featuring The Beatles goes without saying; the personal relation between Julian and John Lennon has made this exhibit something that does not occur too often.

The idea stemmed from a guy named Timothy White, a photographer and partner at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, when he came to Julian with the task of looking through a few hundred photographs of his father with The Beatles and choosing 25, or 50 because it was the 50^th anniversary. And so 25 shots are being exhibited at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in the SoHo district until the end of February and another 25 at a gallery in Los Angeles, at which Timothy White is also a partner.

Having curated and chosen the images to be displayed himself, Julian must have had quite a poignant and cathartic experience, especially with photography being his main focus recently. He chose the photographs that evoked emotion and speaks more of the back-story of what the boys of The Beatles were feeling when they were becoming legends in the music industry – and in history. Julian has also said that some of the images display the look of anxiety and fear, an element of numbness, and the reality of the popularity of The Beatles really hitting them. But if there’s one thing that the exhibition will portray clearly, it’s the hell of a ride that the members of The Beatles had.