Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a tall, imposing, and altogether unusual man would traverse the mountainous slopes of the Blenio Valley in southeastern Switzerland. During his treks through even the most remote corners of the valley, he would sing to himself all while hawking vegetable and flower seeds. Aside from his seed packets, he also carried something else: a large format plate camera. That strange man was Roberto Donetta, born to an impoverished family in Biasca in 1865. For decades, he photographed countless residents across the Blenio Valley, capturing how the isolated region gradually adapted to modernity.
Despite his idiosyncratic personality, Donetta was clearly still endearing enough, managing to snap thousands of images of children, families, wedding couples, and professionals throughout his life. At times humorous and light-hearted, other times serious and affecting, his photographs undoubtedly reveal everyday life in the valley with sensitivity and clarity. One image, for instance, depicts a group of women, all workers at the local chocolate factory. The women are posed strategically, some lounging on chairs and others standing close together as if engaged in a secret conversation. Even so, the women appear at ease, staring into Donetta’s lens with solemn yet self-assured gazes. They’re dignified and composed, even when contending with the hardships of factory work.
Laborers feature prominently in Donetta’s archive—but children do as well. With his younger subjects, Donetta was “able to live out his delight in composition,” according to Fotostiftung Schweiz, directing “small scenes” that saw children as “accomplices” in his “creative ideas.” One photograph showcases a young boy clad in a dapper suit, complete with a small chain, bow tie, and hat. He wears a stern face, but this isn’t necessarily an indication of his character. His expression, Donetta seems to suggest, should be read as an attempt to appear older, matching the maturity of his clothes. The photograph offered the boy an opportunity: to dress up, play a role, and live out an imagined persona.
It took years for these photographs to gain any sort of recognition. Donetta’s life was turbulent, marred by dissatisfaction and poverty. In 1912, his wife and six of his seven children left him for more lucrative work in Bellinzona. Just a year later, on his 48th birthday, some of his belongings were seized, including his beloved camera.
“Not to be able to work for a period of nine months—that severed my connection with my art and made me totally destitute,” Donetta had said of the experience.
His frustration toward his family and career often left him in despair, even though he was also open-minded and inquisitive. He was, in a word, “contradictory.” He was all at once stubborn in his ways, eager to uphold tradition, and yet intrigued by such modern technology as cameras. All these factors ultimately led him to be viewed as a “vagabond,” and at times even a “sinister, cranky misfit,” by those in the valley.
By the time he died in 1932, in Corzoneso, not much had changed for Donetta. His photographic equipment was confiscated, while his possessions were auctioned off to account for his debts to the municipality. All that remained after his death were his glass plates.
Eventually, Mariarosa Bozzini discovered about 5,000 glass-plate negatives by Donetta in the 1980s. It was only in 1993, however, that these photographs were developed for the first time by Alberto Flammer. They were exhibited that same year and again, much later, in 2016 at Fotostiftung Schweiz.
Today, we can consider ourselves lucky to encounter Donetta’s photographs. After all, they reveal some of life’s greatest and most universal facts, reflecting the way we live, grow, and love, even in the most isolated of places.
At the turn of the century, Roberto Donetta captured thousands of pictures in Switzerland’s Blenio Valley, capturing the everyday lives of its residents.
Donetta’s work offers an intimate glimpse into how an isolated Swiss village adapted to modernity at the turn of the century.
In 1932, Roberto Donetta died just as he had lived: in poverty. It took decades for his work to be rediscovered and later gain recognition as significant “outsider photography.”
Sources: Roberto Donetta: Photographer and Seed Salesman from Bleniota; Complicity: Roberto Donetta; Biography: Roberto Donetta; Vagabond Photographer Shot 5,000 Photos of Rural Life That Were Found Years After His Death
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