It is hard not to feel at home in wintertime in Trieste. Once the north-eastern bora winds die down and the silent city “re-populates”, it is a joy to walk its light-studded streets or to duck into one of its ubiquitous historic cafés, which are reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (its charming parts) where chocolate was apparently served whenever you ordered coffee. But for whoever braves the poorly connected trains to get there, the real homecoming comes at the Magazzino delle Idee. As the venue’s name suggests, it is a storehouse and looks like one, but once inside, ideas unfurl with the openness fitting of any respectable port city.
Until April 27, visitors to the Wulz’s photography show will enter the space by way of a room curators call The Family Album, which, according to co-curator Antonio Giusa, introduces exhibition goers to this “dynasty of photographers” whose work spans from the mid-1800s to 1981, when Marion, the last surviving Wulz, closed the studio’s doors for the last time. Photography buffs who like vintage shipyards and urban scenes of a city at the dawn of a new century will spend time with the oldest member of the family with works on show, “grandfather” Giuseppe Wulz. Those of us who are “people” people, will start to get excited one generation later, with Giuseppe’s son Carlo, whose camera captured portraits of groups in uniform or costume, and individuals, all of whom seemed to want to be immortalized with some special prop to save their spot among the ranks of their chosen profession. Carlo had an eye, you might say, for making people “who they were”, and his business flourished in early twentieth-century Trieste, as artists, actors, musicians and athletes came to his studio to become the best version of themselves… eternally.
Marion and Wanda steal the show
To create a dynasty, you need continuance, and Carlo Wulz began organizing photo playdates with his daughters before they could toddle. According to exhibition co-curator Federica Muzzarelli, these “appuntamenti fotografici” ended up becoming performance-like scenes, which Wanda and Marion discussed and created in partnership with their father. Judging from the photographs produced, it is easy to see why these sessions continued into the girls’ adolescence and womanhood because Marion and Wanda Wulz were—in Carlo’s view and mine—the most photogenic of family models ever to be born. Oftentimes, the girls would have him step aside, so they could author their own pictures, leaving “the set”, to run round to the camera and snap a shot of the sister still in the scene.
All images of the Wulz Studio Archive are © Archivi Alinari, Firenze
All images of the Wulz Studio Archive are © Archivi Alinari, Firenze / Exploring FAF’s Wulz Studio Archive, ‘backstage’ photos by Marco Badiani
Archive, ‘backstage’ photos by Marco Badiani
Archive, ‘backstage’ photos by Marco Badiani
Archive, ‘backstage’ photos by Marco Badiani
Ultimately, the sisters would end up swapping the same camera for the whole of their careers. The secrets of their shared camera is a headache for photography historians seeking accurate attributions. But while enjoying the exhibition, one cannot help but get the sense that every sitter Wanda and Marion portrayed became part of their “inner circle”. Their photographs with fashion designer Anna Pittoni is a case in point, and it bears witness to one of their most significant creative fellowships. Yet no matter the photo shoot, they sought to feature women at home in their own skin—athletes, dancers, actresses and creatives of all sorts—whose images have come to embody the early twentieth-century’s “new woman” in her many roles. “Wanda and Marion represent the history of Trieste, of Italy, of the history of photography and of women in general,” Muzzarelli says. “Originally, Marion’s vocation was painting and Wanda’s was music, but courageously and when need arose, they took over the photography studio, with the death of their father in 1928, and the profession became their life. They were women with creative ambitions, who were transgressive in their own way, pioneers.”
The Florence perspective
No show is born overnight or begins the day its venue opens for visitors. Such is the concept underlying every issue of The Curators’ Quaderno, a quarterly notebook-style publication created by the Calliope Arts Foundation, with The Florentine Press. Copies are available to The Florentine’s subscribers in printed or PDF copies, or can be purchased from the www.theflorentine.net shop. Its newest issue, The Wulz Studio: 8,000 Negatives, follows the Wulz project from its inception at the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (FAF). “The Wulz Studio Archive is one of the foundation’s most interesting collections, which is home to 170 holdings (hosting some five million objects). It represents the evolution of a city, the evolution of a technique and a shift in how ‘sitters’ were represented, especially women. In Trieste, it is the first time we are co-organizing an exhibition as the final step of a project, not its first phase,” says FAF president Giorgio Van Straten. “This project involved the complete digitalisation of the Wulz Studio’s photographic archive and the recognisance of their paper archive, including both personal and company documents. Making an entire collection accessible is a rarity and it allows us to hone in on the creative process of this family of photographers. The Wulz Studio project has become the prototype of how we would like to proceed with all of our holdings.”
The Wulz Studio 8,000 Negatives
Choose between PDF Digital edition or Paper copy delivered to your home – FREE SHIPPING IN ITALY ONLY.
The Curators’ Quaderno is a collection of notebook-style publications, conceived by Calliope Arts, in collaboration with The Florentine Press, to raise awareness of women’s contributions to the fields of art, science and culture.
Text language: English – 36 pages
The exhibition Fotografia Wulz: Trieste, la famiglia, l’atelier at the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste is co-curated by Federica Muzzarelli and Antonio Giusa. It is organized by the Ente Regionale per il Patrimonio Culturale del Friuli Venezia Giulia ERPAC FVG, in collaboration with Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia, with donor Calliope Arts Foundation, and the contribution of Fondazione CR Firenze, which supported restoration of the Wulz Studio Archive.
