Ernesto Bazan


Ernesto Bazan is an Italian photographer, living in the United States. Cuba has been a major subject of his work. Bazan has received a 1st prize at the World Press Photo contest, the Lange-Taylor Prize, and the W. Eugene Smith Grant. He has had a solo exhibition at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C. and his work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Early life

Bazan was born and grew up in Palermo, Sicily. His father was a doctor.
He started taking photographs as a teenager and at age 17 decided to become a photographer. Two years later, he moved to New York City to study photography and began working internationally.

Life and work

He first traveled to Cuba in 1992 and lived there until 2006. He married a Cuban woman, Sissy, and became a father to twin boys, Stefano and Pietro. He and his family moved to Veracruz, Mexico "after suspicious authorities disapproved of his photography classes, which they thought were unauthorized journalism seminars". His self-published Cuba trilogy includes the "melancholy, gritty urban world" of Bazan: Cuba in black-and-white; the Cuban countryside in colour in Al Campo ; and Isla, containing black-and-white panoramas. In 2014, they moved to Jersey City, USA. In 2016, after the death of Fidel Castro, Bazan again visited Cuba which provided the material for the book 25 de Noviembre.
Before You Grow Up is a family album for his sons. In it, "photographs are mixed with drawings, letters, his mother's journal entries, memorabilia and notebook pages." According to James Estrin in The New York Times, Before You Grow Up "captures the joys and sorrows of 21st-century family life" and "is about the importance of family and the fragility of life".

Publications

  • The Perpetual Past. Palermo: Novecento, 1985.. With an introduction by Jerre Mangione.
  • Passing Through .
  • Bazan: Cuba. Self-published, 2008.
  • Al Campo. Self-published, 2011.. With an afterword by Colin Westerbeck.
  • Isla. Self-published, 2014.
  • Before You Grow Up. Self-published, 2017. Photographs "mixed with drawings, letters, his mother's journal entries, memorabilia and notebook pages."
  • ''25 de Noviembre''

Awards

Exhibitions

Collections

Bazan's work is held in the following permanent collections: