Evocative and powerful, Italian social documentary photography between the four decades from the 1930s to 60s is a rich source of cultural history, reflecting a time of dramatic upheaval. Exploring a huge range of unpublished and unknown images, this book shows that to fully understand the photography of this period we must take a more expansive view than scholars have applied to date, considering issues of propaganda, aesthetics, religion and international influences.
Focusing on the human condition, and concerned in particular with portraying the underprivileged and marginalised, Italian ’humanist’ photography has long been argued to have a strong connection with Neorealist film and literature. For the first time this book challenges this assumption by also placing it in context with painting, magazine publishing, and amateur and anthropological photography.
Analysing the work of 30 Italian photographers and many more from American, Britain, France and Germany, this book sets Italian photography against an international backdrop of social documentary, giving it a distinctive place in the global history of photography. An exciting volume of original research, this book will fascinate art historians and scholars of Italian and visual culture studies.
