Wanda Wulz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wanda Wulz (* 1903 in Trieste , † 1984 ibid) was an Italian photographer who was loosely associated with the art movement futurism .

life and work

Wanda Wulz learned portrait photography from her father Carlo and her grandfather Giuseppe Wulz , who had opened a photo studio in Trieste in 1868. After the death of their father in 1928, Wanda and her sister Marion took over the prestigious studio, which gave them the freedom to work experimentally for artists and aristocrats in addition to portrait photography.

In 1932 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , the founder of Italian Futurism, became aware of the avant-garde work of Wanda Wulz. She presented him with five of her photographs for the Futurists' exhibition in April of the same year in Trieste, the Mostra nazionale fotografia futurista .

Wanda Wulz's artistic photographs are predominantly portraits, self-portraits, partly alienated, and nude photographs in black and white. Her probably most famous work with the title Io + gatto (German I and Cat , English Me and Cat ) from 1932 shows a synthesis of her face with that of a cat. For this composition, she placed two negatives on top of each other and developed them on a sheet of photo paper. The picture looks like an apparition from a dream, but less mystical as the constructed character is obvious. Mia Fineman, curator of photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , sees Wanda Wulz's art influenced by the subversive spirit of surrealism . With her picture Io + gatto, the artist offers a strong visual metaphor for the fluidity of female identity and the seemingly eerie dissolution of the boundaries between self and others.

Wanda Wulz managed to establish herself as a professional photographer at a time when women were mostly only the target of the photographic gaze. She worked with her sister in a studio in Trieste until 1981. Since she had no heirs, she gave her photographic work to Fratelli Alinari . It is archived in the Museo di Storia della Fotografia Fratelli Alinari, founded in Florence in 1985 . Her pictures belong to the art collections of the great museums in the world.

Group exhibitions since 2004

  • Faking It. Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop , The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York October 11, 2012 to January 27, 2013
  • Sight of Italy, 1841-1941. Great masters of Italian photography in Alinari Museum collections , Rosphoto State Museum and Exhibition Center for Photography, Saint Petersburg November 17, 2011 to January 15, 2012
  • Female trouble. The camera as a mirror and stage for female productions , Pinakothek der Moderne , Munich, July 18 to October 26, 2008
  • Sus ojos les delatan , Fundacion Foto Colectania, Barcelona November 22, 2006 to March 24, 2007
  • Vu d'Italie 1841–1941 , Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia MNAF, Florence October 28 to December 10, 2006
  • Vu d'Italie 1841-1941. La photographie italienne dans les collections du Musée Alinari , Pavillon des Arts, Paris, 10 November 2004 to 6 March 2005

literature

  • Katharina Hausel: The experimental works of the Trieste photographer Wanda Wulz (1903–1984) as reflected in their environment. Dissertation . FU Berlin , 2004, DNB 981563864
  • Wanda Wulz. In: Vu D'Italie 1841–1941: La Photographie Italienne Dans Les Collections Du Musee Alinari. Paris 2004, ISBN 88-7292-472-3 , p. 249.
  • Lynne Warren (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography. Volume 1, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 1-57958-393-8 , pp. 545f.
  • Inka Graeve Ingelman (Ed.): Female Trouble. The camera as a mirror and stage for female productions. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-2203-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elvio Guagnini, Italo Zannier: La Trieste dei Wulz: volti di una storia. Photography 1860–1980. Alinari, Florence 1989, ISBN 88-7292-112-0 (Italian)
  2. ^ Mia Fineman: Faking it. Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-300-18501-0 (the book was followed by the exhibition of the same name at the MET in October 2013 )
  3. ^ Donald Kuspit: From Vision to Dream. In: Lynn Gamwell (Ed.): Dreams 1900-2000. Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind. Cornell University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8014-3730-X , p. 81.
  4. ^ Mia Fineman: Faking it. Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2012, pp. 171f.
  5. ↑ Silvia Valisa: An Imaged Life. Wanda Wulz and the Familiar Archive. In: Rossella Riccobono: A 'window' on the Female Modernist 'I': from Neera to Elsa Morante. Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle 2013, ISBN 978-1-4438-4983-8 .
  6. ^ Giovanna Bertelli: Wanda Wulz, Trieste 1903–1984 , Enciclopedia delle Donne (Italian)
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Wanda Wulz, Group Exhibitions, on the Photography Now website
personal data
SURNAME Wulz, Wanda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Trieste
DATE OF DEATH 1984
Place of death Trieste