Giovanni Gastel was born in Milan on 27th December 1955 to Giuseppe Gastel and Ida Visconti di Modrone.

He had his first taste of photography in 1970s. The moment marked the start of a long apprenticeship that continued when he was offered the chance to work for Christie’s in 1975-76.

The turning point came in 1981 when he met Carla Ghiglieri, who became his agent, and introduced him to the fashion world. Following the appearance of his first still lives in the magazine Annabella in 1982, he began to work with Vogue Italia and then, following his meeting with Flavio Lucchini, the editor of Edimoda, and Gisella Borioli, for the magazines Mondo Uomo and legendary Donna.

In 1997, the Milan Triennale gave him a solo exhibition curated by Germano Celant and his professional success was consolidated a decade later when his name appeared alongside other prominent photographers like Oliviero Toscani, Giampaolo Barbieri and Ferdinando Scianna, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino, and Jürgen Teller. During his career, he served as the president of the Associazione Fotografi Professionisti and a permanent member of the Polaroid Museum of Chicago.

Professional success opens the door to another side of Gastel's photographic repertoire that had remained unexplored until the end of the 2000s: the Portrait. In recent years, Gastel has found himself passionate about this branch of photography and, as he has always done in his career, immerses himself totally in it. His work culminates in an exhibition at the Maxxi Museum in Rome in the year 2020 with a selection of 200 portraits that portray the faces of people from the world of culture, design, art, fashion, music, entertainment and politics that Gastel himself met during his 40-year career. Some of the noteworthy portraits include Barack Obama, Ettore Sottsass, Roberto Bolle, and Marco Pannella.

Giovanni Gastel was a member of the Board of Directors of the Museum of Contemporary Photography - an institutional partner of the Triennale di Milano - and of the Board of Directors of the IEO-CCM Foundation.

On March 13, 2021, we lost Giovanni Gastel at the age of 65 to COVID-19. His legacy as a fashion photographer who pushed the boundaries of the medium and elevated both Italian photography and fashion will be remembered by generations to come.