Wanda Wulz: a photo diary. Self-portraits, disguises, performance

Abstract

Child and granddaughter of a centennial dynasty of photographers from Trieste, Wanda Wulz was just 25 years old when she started to lead her family photo studio introducing a long portrait career, along with a short and important avant-gardist period. On closer inspection, what that made her «the only Italian female futuristic photographer» thanks to her well-known worldwide Io + gatto, was clearly the result of a personal, dynamic, and experimental artistic career. Among the 30s work there is a more intimate and private photography, aimed to expose and legitimate an emancipate female identity, in line with the modern, rising, new woman. This paper seeks to bring out a “personal archive” of images from Fondo Wulz (Alinari Foundation) useful to convey the conceptual strength of the photography as well as a new female identity. The aim is to find out interesting female self-portraits – from being object of several portraits made by her father to subject of representation –, of disguise and mini-performance.

Keywords

• photography
• female
• identity
• performance
• self-portraits