Georgina Masson. 1912-1980

Georgina Masson is the literary pseudonym of Marion Johnson (1912-1980), Babs to her friends.
An English citizen, Marion Johnson was born in the Far East and lived and traveled in her youth
throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia. She settled in Rome in the early 1940s, and remained in Italy
until her return to England in 1978. A photographer and historian of the architecture of ancient Rome
to medieval Sicily, Masson was a profound and passionate connoisseur of Rome. Her celebrated The
Companion Guide to Rome(1965), and numerous photo-graphic
guides, reveal her indefatigable curiosity and live-ly
interests. The author of many studies and biographies,
she dedicated major interest to a study of Rome and
Italian architecture, with particular attention to villas and
gardens. As an expert on this subject, she published her
own photographs in important volumes such as Italian
Villas and Palaces (1959) and Italian Villas and Gardens
(1961). In Rome she assiduously frequented the American
Academy, to which she bequeathed her legacy of nega-tives
realized throughout the years. A veritable treasure
trove of images dating from the mid-1950s through the
1970s, some of this material reveals an anthropological
interest in documenting local customs and life.