The Huntington Acquires the Archive of Gusmano Cesaretti

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has acquired the archive of Italian-born artist Gusmano Cesaretti, a self-taught photographer renowned for capturing significant portraits of Southern California’s Mexican American community, incisive views of Los Angeles urban space, and set images for multiple Hollywood films. Spanning six decades, the Cesaretti collection comprises approximately 238 boxes of photographic prints, negatives, contact sheets, artist books, and mixed media works, along with documents, recordings, and personal ephemera. This major acquisition significantly enriches the Huntington Library’s holdings of more than 800,000 historical and contemporary photographs.

“As an Italian immigrant invited into a wide range of Los Angeles communities, Cesaretti reflected everyone from graffiti artists to police officers and film actors,” said Sandra Brooke Gordon, Avery Director of the Library at The Huntington. “His archive is an invaluable record of the city. Philip D. Nathanson made this acquisition possible, and we are grateful for his generosity.”

A Life Behind the Lens

Born in Lucca, Italy, in 1944, Cesaretti immigrated to the United States at the age of 19 with a one-way ticket, spending four years in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles in 1967. He immersed himself in the city’s art and street culture, developing a distinct photographic style.

Between 1971 and 1973, he worked as a staff photographer at The Huntington, refining his skills while capturing artworks and botanical scenes on film. In his free time, he roamed East Los Angeles, documenting graffiti artists, lowrider clubs, and intimate community moments, earning trust by sharing prints with his subjects.

In 1977, he founded Cityscape Foto Gallery in Pasadena, exhibiting works by local and international photographers such as Patrick Nagatani, Antonin Kratochvil, and Loretta Ayeroff.

“This acquisition marks a significant homecoming for an artist who profoundly shaped the visual narrative of Los Angeles through his community ties and artistic dedication,” said Linde B. Lehtinen, the Philip D. Nathanson Senior Curator of Photography at The Huntington. “Cesaretti’s bold photographic work and multifaceted archive provide essential perspectives on Southern California’s history that have never been fully assembled in one place. We are excited to preserve and share his legacy with future generations.”

Capturing Los Angeles’ Unseen Narratives

Cesaretti’s archive contains several photographic series that chronicle Los Angeles, including:

• Street Writers (1970–1975): Groundbreaking documentation of graffiti in locations such as Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights in East Los Angeles. Cesaretti, guided by local artist Chaz Bojórquez, tracked and photographed the intricate scripts and tags that were published in the now iconic book Street Writers: A Guided Tour of Chicano Graffiti (1975).

• East LA Diary (1970s): Scenes of lowrider culture, sparked by Cesaretti’s chance encounter with a Klique Car Club president, which led to years of friendship and unparalleled access.

• Police Academy, Los Angeles (1979–1980): A riveting exploration of police training in Griffith Park, part of the Los Angeles Documentary Project, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

• Punks, Los Angeles (1982): Portrait series capturing the city’s punk rock scene, with sitters contributing handwritten commentary.

• Fragments of Los Angeles (2005–2017): Long-term project using color photography to document people, intimate spaces, and an ever-evolving city.

“Cesaretti’s work illuminates the human impact on Los Angeles’ urban landscape,” said Erin Chase, associate curator of architecture and photography at The Huntington. “In a grainy, high-contrast black-and-white style, his photographs reveal a layered world of car club meetups, pulsing dance halls, and powerful familial bonds.”

A Vision That Influenced Hollywood

Cesaretti’s artistic vision left a lasting mark on Hollywood, notably through his four decades-long collaboration with prominent director Michael Mann, as well as directors Tony Scott and Marc Forster. It began in 1979, when Mann commissioned Cesaretti to document life inside Folsom Prison during the shooting of award-winning The Jericho Mile.

“Our collaboration created a bond of brotherhood,” Mann said. “Gusmano’s powerful photography transcends mere images; it captures the raw, ethnographic truths of people and cultures. As a visionary explorer, his work reflects a deep understanding of humanity and the unique essence of places.”

Cesaretti’s explorations with Mann extended from Thief (1981) and Miami Vice (1985–1989) through Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), Collateral (2004) to Blackhat (2016) and Ferrari (2024), among many others.

From 2011 to 2014, Cesaretti shot and directed his own documentary film, Take None Give None, about The Chosen Few, the first multiracial motorcycle club based in South Central Los Angeles.

Beyond Los Angeles: Global Explorations

Cesaretti’s travels, both for film projects and independent work, yielded several key series, including:

• Maria Sabina (1982): Rare photographic encounter with a Mazatec curandera in Oaxaca, Mexico.

• Panguai (1993): Documentary series on a small Muslim village in Thailand.

• Vila Mimosa (2005): Images of Rio de Janeiro’s red-light district.

• Children of Silence (2007): Powerful portrayals of gun culture and poverty in Colón, Panama.

Artist Books and Mixed Media Works

Cesaretti experimented with mixed media works using hand-cut stencils, spray paint, and ink in combination with found objects that probe such themes as religion and social justice. The archive includes a set of dynamic artist books featuring his own photographs collaged with advertising and other popular imagery. These works showcase his process of mocking up, revisiting, and reinventing his visual archive.

The collection also includes vintage cameras, early photography manuals and journals, and some 19th-century tintypes and cartes de visite.

Exhibitions and Publications

In 2008, Cesaretti participated in a major exhibition at The Huntington titled “This Side of Paradise: Body and Landscape in Los Angeles Photographs.” His work was included in the 2011 exhibition “Art in the Streets,” the first major U.S. survey of graffiti and street art, at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.

Cesaretti’s photographs have also been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and Les Rencontres d’Arles International Photography Festival. His works are in the permanent collections of MOCA in Los Angeles and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Cesaretti’s photographs have been published in several notable books, including:

• Street Writers: A Guided Tour of Chicano Graffiti (Acrobat Books, 1975)

• 5 x 5 = 24 (Arte Povera, 1979)

• Fragments of Los Angeles 1969–1989 (Damiani, Italy, 2013)

• Dentro Le Mura/Inside the Walls (Arte Povera, 2014)

• Maria Sabina: En Busca de Cristo Negro/In Search of Black Christ (Conaculta/Gato Negro, 2014)

• 8 EZ STEPS (Arte Povera, 2015)

• Oblio Infinito (Arte Povera, 2017)

• VARRIO: Limited Edition (Little Big Man Books, 2017)

In 2014, he launched Los Angeles FOTOFOLIO, an underground journal featuring images by well-known and emerging photographers. The publication was free and distributed widely to make art photography more accessible to underrepresented communities. The archive includes a complete run of FOTOFOLIO (2014–2019).

The Cesaretti archive will be made available to researchers once fully processed.

For media inquiries or to request high-resolution press images, email huntingtonnews@huntington.org.

About The Huntington

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens is a cultural and educational institution of global significance. Building on Henry E. and Arabella Huntington’s renowned collections, The Huntington supports research and promotes education in the arts, humanities, and botanical science through the growth and preservation of its collections; the development of a community of scholars, school programs, and partnerships; and the display and interpretation of its extraordinary resources for diverse audiences. The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California, 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Visitor information: huntington.org