Gjon Mili, Albanian-American photographer, was born in Korça. He finished high school in Bucharest. He settled in the United States of America in 1923. During his years of study at the University for Electronics (Massachusetts, 1926–1931), he showed interests in art. John Mili used for the first time the electronic flash and the stroboscopic light invented by prof. Harold Exherton (Edgerton). From 1939, he worked for 15 years as a photojournalist for “Life” magazine in New York and traveled to many countries around the world. Gjon Mili’s artistic activity includes many genres of photography, such as landscape, advertising, documentary and political photography, artistic and sports activities, etc.; he artistically immortalized outstanding world figures, such as the director Hitchcock, the composer Stravinsky, the playwrights Sean O’Casey and Ionesko, the pianist Rubinstein, statesmen, etc. In 1970 he published the monograph album “Piccasso’s third dimension” . He opened several exhibitions in capitals of the world from 1934 to 1980. In 1994, a retrospective exhibition was opened in New York on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death. Gjon Mili applied photography with the “multiple exposure” technique within the frame, breaking the laws of gravity and time. Gjon Mili’s photographs are appreciated as technically perfect and artistically innovative, with real life, unparalleled vitality, sometimes with special humor and emotion. He also worked passionately in the field of short films, being simultaneously the director and screenwriter of six films dedicated to the lives of prominent people . such as Sean O’Keys, Pablo Casals, etc. He became known in Albania after 1990. The Association of Albanian Photographers (founded in 1990) and the Institute of Photography and Film (IPF) in Pristina (founded in 2002) bear his name. He passed away in New York, in 1984. (In the photo: John Mili outside his office.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1717.
Photo: © https://www.life.com/photographer/gjon-mili/
Graphic processing: AHCF
