Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:49:43.102Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ghitta Carell and Italian studio photography in the 1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Alessandra Antola*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian, Royal Holloway University of London, UK
*

Abstract

This article explores the issue of elite representation through photography during the 1930s in Italy. It examines how modern technology affected representation and refers specifically to the work of Ghitta Carell, a photographer who became very successful by portraying prominent Fascist men and women in Italy, including the Duce. Images of the dictator had been continually developed since the late 1920s and frequent and various representations of his person, including the face, were pervasive. Carell's idealised style was much appreciated by high society and Fascist officials alike, while her work also has a darker emotional content that borrows from a painterly tradition. Although not engaged directly by the regime, Carell's work has to be considered as both separate from and complementary whilst also adding to the Fascist aesthetic. She was complicit with the cult of the Duce while revealing aspects of Mussolini's personality that other photographers avoided or missed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bertelli, C. 1979. Omnibus. In Storia d'Italia, Annali 2, L'immagine fotografica 1845–1945, ed. Bertelli, Carlo and Bollati, Giulio, 186–90. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Cambria, A. 1978. Le fotografie di Ghitta Carell. In Signori d'Italia nei fotoritratti di Ghitta Carell, ed. Occhipinti, Francesca Maria, 24. Milan: I Fotolibri/Longanesi.Google Scholar
Canino, E. 2005. Clotilde tra due guerre. Florence: Le Lettere.Google Scholar
Clarke, G. 1997. The photograph. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
D'Almeida, F. 2008. High society in the Third Reich. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Di Savoia, M. G. and Romano, B.. 1996. Casa Savoia. Diario di una monarchia. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Falzone del Barbarò, M. 1995. Gli atelier: grandezza e decadenza di uno spazio fotografico. In Un secolo di ritratto fotografico in Italia 1895/1995, ed. Zannier, Italo, 3543. Florence: Alinari.Google Scholar
Franzinelli, M. and Valerio Marino, E.. 2003. Il Duce proibito. Le fotografie di Mussolini che gli italiani non hanno mai visto. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Gigliozzi, G. 1997. Le regine d'Italia. Rome: Newton & Compton.Google Scholar
Ginex, G. 2004. Divine. Emilio Sommariva fotografo. Opere scelte 1910–1930. Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense and Busto Arsizio: Nomos Edizioni.Google Scholar
Gnecchi Ruscone, A. 1982. La moda italiana dalla crisi alla guerra. In Gli anni trenta. Arte e cultura in Italia, ed. di Milano, Comune, 339–59. Milan: Mazzotta.Google Scholar
Jordanova, L. 2000. Defining features: Scientific and medical portraits 1660–2000. London: National Portrait Gallery and Reaktion Books.Google Scholar
Nodin, E. 2003. The illusions of Ghitta Carell: Women photographers in Italy. In Women photographers' European experience, ed. Johannesson, L. and Knape, G., 92121. Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Passerini, L. 1995. Costruzione del femminile e del maschile, dicotomia sociale e androginia simbolica. In Il regime fascista, ed. Del Boca, A., Legnani, M. and Rossi, M.G., 498506. Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Scaraffia, L. 2005. Introduzione. In Elena Canino. Clotilde tra due guerre. 57. Florence: Le Lettere.Google Scholar
Scimé, G. 2006. Appunti per una storia della fotografia al femminile. Catalogo mostra 7 giugno–14 settembre 2006. Biennale Internazionale della Fotografia di Brescia. Brescia: Ken Damy Edizioni Museo.Google Scholar
Schwarzenbach, A. 2004. Royal photographs: Emotions for the people. Contemporary European History 13, no. 3: 255–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turroni, G. 1973. Ghitta Carell. Fotografa di un'epoca. Skema V, no. 8/9: 65.Google Scholar