His parents, Italian immigrants, were well off, and he studied art, music, law and languages.

Photography was coming into its own as an art form, with pictures being shot from odd angles and cropped for effect.

Later, in London, he took portraits of famous artists, and worked on a book about Mesopotamian artifacts in the Louvre and the British Museum.

That year, he was commissioned to photograph Buenos Aires for its 400th anniversary, and produced streetscapes that captured the romance, vitality and squalor of a great city.

Coppola was the author of the photographs that appeared in the first edition of "Evaristo Carriego" (biography) (1930)[3] by Jorge Luis Borges.