Just Passing Through: A Seven-Decade Roman Holiday: The Diaries and Photographs of Milton Gendel

by Milton Gendel, Cullen Murphy (Editor)

One of Vanity Fair’ s Best Books of 2022

“Milton Gendel had the good fortune to live a wildly entertaining life in Rome―a charmed, romantic period he captured in diaries and photos. Milton had the further good fortune to have Cullen Murphy bring this vanished dolce vita to life.” ―Graydon Carter, coeditor of Air Mail

A never-before-seen treasure trove of photos and diary entries from the celebrated photographer Milton Gendel that bring Rome’s midcentury heyday to life.

“I’m just passing through,” Milton Gendel liked to say whenever anybody asked him what he was doing in Rome. Even after seven decades in the Eternal City, from his arrival as a Fulbright Scholar in 1949 until his death in 2018 at the age of ninety-nine, he refused to be pigeonholed. He was always an American―never an “expat,” never an émigré―but he couldn’t leave, so deep were his ties, and this dual bond left an indelible imprint on his life and art.

Born in New York City to Russian immigrants, Gendel first made his way to Meyer Schapiro’s classroom at Columbia University and then to Greenwich Village, where he and his friend Robert Motherwell joined the circle of surrealists around Peggy Guggenheim and André Breton. But it was Rome that earned his enduring fascination―the city supplied him with endless outlets for his curiosity, a series of dazzling apartments in palazzi, the great loves of his life, and the scores of friendships that made his story inextricably part of the city’s own.

Gendel did much more than just pass through, instead becoming one of Rome’s foremost documentarians. He spoke Italian fluently, worked for the industrialist Adriano Olivetti, and sampled the latest currents of Italian art as a correspondent for ARTnews . And he was an artist in his own right, capturing the lives of Sicilian peasants and British royals alike on film and showing his photographs at the Roman outpost of the Marlborough Gallery. Then there were his diaries, a casement window thrown open onto a who’s who of artists, writers, and socialites sojourning in the city that remained, for Gendel, the Caput Mundi : Mark Rothko, Princess Margaret, Alexander Calder, Anaïs Nin, Gore Vidal, Martha Gellhorn, Muriel Spark. His longtime home on the Isola Tiberina was the nerve center of the dolce vita generation, whose comings and goings and doings he immortalized in both words and images.

Here, for the first time in print, are Gendel’s diaries, together with his photographs, selected and edited by Cullen Murphy. Just Passing Through brings together the most striking artifacts of one of the past century’s richest and most expansive lives, salted with wit and insight into the figures who defined an era.

Includes black-and-white photographs

Genres: Photography, Italy, Nonfiction, Biography

272 pages, Hardcover

Published November 8, 2022

Reviews

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Milton Gendel when I started reading this, but his life sounded fascinating and I think the book was well written enough that even someone like me could find a lot of value in the reading. This is a skim of what seems to be decades of diaries and photos. I would have liked the book to have been longer, which is a good sign. I would also have appreciated slightly less photos of Princess Margaret and more of other subjects but I can totally understand why it was felt that candid photos of a notorious royal princess might have been a bigger draw for most people.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I was engaged by this book, it has some gaps. I would have liked more connection about the various players.
The principal – Milton Gendel – was an extraordinary man who knew everyone, did a lot, was not effete, but certainly sophisticated. He lived an life with many interests, and is diary reflects those interests as well as those he knew. I didn’t get as much information about Roman life as I might have expected, but did learn about the life of an individual in many cultural capitals: London, Paris, New York as well as Rome.
While his photos were not always fabulous, they demonstrated his interests in statuary as well as personalities; there was a lot of focus on Princess Margaret. Her social life, the casual nature of some of it as well as of the pictures were a very different picture than I had of her; it was illuminating.
I enjoyed the book a lot in spite of its faults. It was a quick read that was perfect for an episodic periods of sitting with the book.

[Paul Moloney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of chaff among the wheat here. From what I read beforehand, I thought his diary of Rome life through the decades would be fascinating. But there's a lot of talk of lunches and dinners with minor characters and socialites who you've probably never heard of and who don't seem particularly interesting, even as portrayed by Gendel. The best bits are when Gore Vidal pops up (seems to have been Gendel's frenemy but some of the funniest bits are when he arrives on the scene). As someone else mentions in their review here, there is far far far too much of Princess Margaret, both photos and mentions (and again if you're thinking she perhaps had hidden depths, none of it comes through here). Apart from mentions of some restaurants (some of which still exist), the places he lived such as on the Isola Tiberina (number 19, Piazza S. Bartolomeo, looking externally unchanged), and the flea market in Porta Portese (all of which are interesting), there's not actually that much mention of Roman life itself. Worth a browse if you are interested in Rome, but don't be afraid to skip.

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The author, who makes his way to Rome as a Fulbright Scholar, ends up spending the rest of his life there. A great listener and with a wonderful eye, his diary thoughts and intimate photos make up this book. The author is at the center of the world’s art scene that passes through Rome, giving us thoughts of Gore Vidal, Peggy Guggenheim, Mark Rothko and dozens more. A fascinating portrait of a lost world and the author shines a new light on these huge artists and personalities in their everyday lives.

[Woolfhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lives like Milton Gendel’s - immersed in art and books, endless travel and drinks/dinners with artists, critics, professors, collectors, editors, actors, and royalty - are both enviable and impossible to imagine happening now. He seems to have known everyone and, in these diary excerpts and photos anyway, comes across as a bemused observer. I’m perhaps most envious of his weekly purchases at the Roman flea markets. I wish the text had been longer, but that was the sacrifice for including so many photos. A pleasant glimpse into a very different time.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be more about Rome and roman people but really it was journal entries about someone else’s friends that maybe you’ve vaguely heard of but don’t know and don’t particularly care about. I’m addition the images had no particular relationship to the text and weren’t all that interesting on their own merit.

[Scott Gosnell]

What a wonderfully gentle life, revolving around having friends over and going over to friends' houses, taking pictures of those friends, writing a diary, and living to ninety-nine, largely in Rome.