The cat that fought Mussolini: how the Wulz images sisters weaponised the household pet | Photography

‘In those fascist times,” says Federica Muzzarelli of Italy in the 1920s and 30s, “women were not free. They were regarded as mothers and homemakers. But the Wulz sisters were determined to create their own destiny. They chose photography as a way of being independent – and to show through their images that women could live that way.”

Muzzarelli is the curator of Wanda and Marion Wulz: Avant-Garde Photography in 20th Century Italy, a show about to open at the Estorick Collection in London. The Wulz sisters experimented with blended and altered images more than half a century before Photoshop was invented. The most famous image to emerge from their studio was I + Cat, a self-portrait of Wanda superimposed on the face of the family pet. But the show aims to cast Marion in a new light, showing that she was no mere assistant, but rather equal to her sister in terms of photography, as they championed feminism in fascist Italy, keeping the idea of women’s emancipation alive at a time of unbridled patriarchal ideology.

Wanda, born in Trieste in 1903, was a promising dancer and musician; Marion, two years her junior, had been to artwork faculty and needed to color. But after the pair inherited their father’s photographic studio, which had in flip been based by his father, they realised it represented their greatest path to an autonomous future. “They photographed modern women, dancing, playing sports, doing gymnastics,” says Muzzarelli. Women who had been artists, poets, writers and actors sat for the sisters. Among them had been painter Leonor Fini and Olympic fencing champion Irene Camber.

In 1932, Wanda exhibited six works, together with I + Cat within the National Exhibition of Futurist Photography. The present was staged to mark 10 years for the reason that fascist revolution however, contends Muzzarelli, Wanda was by no means keen on that . She simply needed to point out, as the one girl participating, that she was each bit as succesful as the lads.

“She showed she had the ability and skill to create a photomontage,” says Muzzarelli. Her method for I + Cat, which superimposed one adverse on prime of one other, was invented within the mid-Nineteenth century, however Wanda used it in a brand new means, making one face hers and the opposite that of Mucincina, the household cat. Both negatives will probably be within the London present, in addition to the completed work. “Wanda wanted to explore the idea of female identity, of the cat as a free creature, a symbol of freedom,” says Muzzarelli, who believes one other image Wanda confirmed within the 1932 exhibition – Futurist Breakfast, displaying objects from a girl’s dresser – was additionally included to make a feminist level.

The exhibition was Wanda’s solely foray into futurism, however the years that adopted had been the sisters’ heyday. They continued to stay within the house block in central Trieste through which that they had been born, and the place their studio was based mostly. It turned the centre of a casual feminine salon.

“For several years,” says Claudia Baroncini, director of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia, which owns the sisters’ archive, “the fashion designer Anita Pittoni lived with them. With her, they created a kind of club of artists – women who wanted to experiment with new ways of living. So they were pushing a different sort of life alongside a different sort of photography. And of course, photography has always been about a fusion of ideas and reality. So they were living their art.”

Their first position within the studio was as topics – they had been usually dressed up and photographed by their father, Carlo, once they had been kids. So they had been all the time aware of self-image, of disguise, of what look symbolised. As portrait photographers they had been consultants at “improving” the look of their sitters. “They were very clever with negatives,” says Baroncini, “creating shadows to change the shape of someone’s mouth or eyes, or to improve the quality of their skin. You can see, looking at the negatives, how much work they did to make their prints perfect. And that meant famous women wanted to be photographed by them, because they wanted to look perfect.”

They additionally photographed each other: the present will embrace Marion’s putting portrait of Wanda carrying motorbike goggles and one other of her dressed as Cleopatra, whereas Wanda’s pictures of Marion embrace her carrying designs by Pittoni, together with a very modern-looking closeup with shining eyes.

In spring 1945, because the second world warfare ended, Trieste was liberated from fascist rule by the Yugoslav military. From the terrace of their house, Marion photographed tanks and troopers – and later celebrations on the street when the Anglo-American troops arrived. “These images show she was fully part of the artistic partnership,” says Baroncini.

Although the ladies labored till the Seventies, they by no means recaptured their early success. Money turned a wrestle and so they closed their studio in 1981, whereas persevering with to take images. After Wanda died in 1984, Marion – who lived one other 9 years – documented their life and work collectively in a collection of diaries.

“Their lives had been tough,” says Baroncini, “and they didn’t realise the importance of their work for the history of photography. Wanda had a brief burst of fame during the futurist period, but they would be very surprised to know that, more than 120 years after their births, they were being recognised as great photographers.”