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A Thousand Words: A Vittorio Sella Photography Exhibition

In 1899, on the slopes of Kangchenjunga (Nepal Himalaya), pioneering Italian mountaineer and photographer Vittorio Sella took the first image of a distant Chomolungma: Mount Everest.

Event Date

03 October 2026

This event occurs daily from
11 Sept 2026 to 18 Oct 2026

£ Free

Description

126 years later, a small team from the UK set off with a large format analogue camera to find that forgotten spot and recreate that iconic image.

This exhibition celebrates Sella’s work and his enduring legacy as one of the godfathers of mountain landscape imagery.

Alongside Sella’s photographs there are both modern large-format and digital images taken by the team – Matt Sharman and Matt Hardy – that set out to attempt to recreate that iconic first picture of the highest mountain on Earth.

Vittorio Sella’s lifelong mission was to combine all his passions – mountaineering, chemistry, invention, photography – and return from the high mountains with evidence of their power and beauty and to share his wonder with the world.

While this Exhibition is at Rheged, we will be doing some screenings of the documentary feature film which accompanies it. Look out for ‘A Thousand Words’ on the cinema section of the Rheged website.