The First Italian Women’s Photography Exhibition (1934): contexts of a pioneering initiative

Abstract

The paper aims to reconstruct the I Mostra femminile italiana di fotografia, organized in December 1934 in Turin by the Società Pro Cultura Femminile (1911-). This event highlights the work of a group of amateur female photographers at the end of a course held by Mario Bellavista, one of the most active authors in contemporary Italian photographic culture. Set within a particularly fruitful context, the exhibition represents a pioneering space of aggregation, creative dialogue, and visual exploration, which catches the interest of some of the most important photographic magazines of the period, heavily influenced by male-dominated associations and models. At the same time, it provides food for thought for a broder reflection on some of the contradiction and mechanisms underlying the definition of gender roles in the history of Italian photography, that allocated women a largely unexplored and marginal space, which still needs deeper investigations.