By Daryl Lang

Grazia Neri Agency, a major distributor of editorial photography in Italy, is shutting down, according to a message to business partners from its director.

In a message dated September 17, Michele Neri, the son of agency founder Grazia Neri, writes that the agency is entering liquidation and voluntarily winding down. He blames a “crisis of the Italian editorial market.”

“The extreme editorial and advertising crisis that has started in the second half of 2008 and has exploded in 2009 has brought the Agency to a severe financial crisis, with a decrease in sales of nearly 40%, the capital erosion and heavy losses,” Neri writes.

Grazia Neri Agency was unable to find a strategic partner, the message continues. The agency had already cut its staff from 31 to 18 and used up all its reserve cash.

The message does not offer details about how the agency will wind down, but says, “In the next months the Agency will continue its operations only to accomplish ongoing projects, tasks and activities which are necessary to the liquidation.”

Grazia Neri Agency was founded in 1966. The company represents photographers for assignments and distributes news, documentary, sports and creative stock photography. The agency is the Italian representative of many individual photojournalists and over 150 international agencies.

Among Grazia Neri’s U.S. partners are Aurora, Contact Press Images, Polaris, Veras Images and VII Photo. (Grazia Neri Agency is a distributor of IPNStock, which, like PDN, is part of the Nielsen Business Media photo group.)

Other agencies that specialize in editorial photography have struggled in recent months. French agency Eyedea Presse recently said it was considering a reorganization. In March, World Picture Network said it was shutting its assignment division.