Franco Vimercati was born in Milan in 1940 and died there in 2001.

Franco Vimercati was a meticulous and essential photographer, interpreter of the silent and repetitive nature of the real. His interest has always been directed to the analysis of everyday objects, like a bottle of mineral water, an electric iron, a tureen, and to the composition and decomposition of the scene, repeatedly assembled according to the need of the photographic eye. Marked by the experience of photographers such as Luigi Ghirri and Ugo Mulas, Franco Vimercati made his first photographic series Sulle Langhe, in 1973. After this experience, the artist isolated the camera within his four walls and in 1975 produced a series comprising thirty-six photographs of bottles of mineral water. Influenced by the new artistic discoveries of minimalism and figures such as Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin and Giulio Paolini, Franco Vimercati soon began to complicate the photographed object in form and composition, by focusing on a more limited selection of items. It is no longer the series to be potentially infinite but the possibilities of the representation that are always different.

Important solo shows have been devoted to the artist: Franco Vimercati. The World in a Grain of Sand / Il mondo in un granello di sabbia, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome (2023, upcoming); Ideias. O legado de Giorgio Morandi, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, San Paolo, poi Rio de Janeiro (2021); Franco Vimercati. La fotografia, la vita. Un dialogo con Giorgio Morandi, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Madrid, Madrid (2019); Franco Vimercati, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2016); Die Dinge des Lebens / Das Leben der Dinge. Franco Vimercati & George Kubler, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden (2014); Franco Vimercati. Tutte le cose emergono dal nulla, Palazzo Fortuny, Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia, Venice (2012); Fotografia Europa – Eternità. Il tempo dellʼimmagine, Reggio Emilia (2009).

Among the group exhibitions: Quand fondra la neige où ira le blanc. Opere dalla Collezione Enea Righi, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice (2016); L’Inarchiviabile/The Unarchivable, FM Centro per l’arte contemporanea, Milano (2016); The Lasting, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome (2016); Cantiere del ‘900. Opere dalle collezioni Intesa Sanpaolo, Gallerie d’Italia, Milan (2015); Addio anni settanta. Arte a Milano 1969/1980, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2012); Conceptual Art – The Panza Collection, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto (2010); Italics – Arte italiana fra tradizione e rivoluzione 1968-2008, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008).