1932 – 2026, was an Italian photographer based in Milan, known particularly for his photographs of cities, architecture, sculpture, and works of art. The son of art critic and writer Raffaele Carrieri, he grew up in an environment closely connected to art and artists. After leaving school, he worked in the photographic archive of the weekly magazine Epoca at Mondadori and subsequently worked on advertising short films before concentrating on photography.

In 1957 he began an extensive photographic project on Milan, producing around 3,500 photographs within the boundaries of the city. From these, 134 images were arranged into ten sequences and published in the photobook Milano, Italia in 1959. The book was structured like a screenplay and presented a portrait of postwar Milan. Ugo Mulas recognized the importance of the work and became a close friend; several photographs from the project were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Carrieri maintained an interest in cinema while developing an extensive career photographing art and architecture. For around fifteen years, publisher Amilcare Pizzi sent him around the world to photograph works for a UNESCO-sponsored series on humanity's artistic heritage. He photographed ancient Etruscan, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian sculpture, and between 1975 and 1977 produced a body of work on African sculpture, exhibited at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan in 1981 and later published in a special edition of Karen Blixen's La mia Africa commissioned by Olivetti.

His architectural work included projects for companies such as Knoll and Unifor and repeated collaborations involving the architecture of Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Rem Koolhaas, and Aldo Rossi. Later in life, he travelled internationally to document the architecture of Pier Luigi Nervi, producing a substantial archive that formed the basis of exhibitions and publications. He also developed a long-running photographic study of flowers, presented in exhibitions at the Triennale Milano in 2017 and Gallerie d'Italia in 2023.

Reference

Il Giornale dell’Architettura, official website.

https://ilgiornaledellarchitettura.com/2026/04/14/mario-carrieri-1932-2026/