Gjon Mili, Albanian-American photographer, passed away in New York (USA). He was born in Korça, in 1904. He finished high school in Bucharest. He settled in the United States of America in 1923. During his years of study at the High School of Electronics (Massachusetts, 1926–1931), he showed an interest in art. Gjon Mili used for the first time the electronic flash and the stroboscopic light invented by prof. Harold 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, political, 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 Jonesko, 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 (IFF) in Prishtina (founded in 2002) bear his name. (In the photo: Gjon Mili)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1717.
Photo: © https://gazetavatra.com/nje-lis-ne-kater-stinet-fotografi-nga-gjon-mili/
Graphic processing: AHCF
