Hilde in Italy. Art and life in the work of Hilde Lotz-Bauer

The Museo di Roma in Trastevere hosts a photographic exhibition dedicated to the extraordinary and versatile German art photographer, forerunner of street photography.

After her beginnings as a photographer of the drawings of the famous Bernhard Degenhart, her first husband, Hilde Lotz-Bauer dedicated her art to the research of art historians, at the same time visiting the whole of Italy, portraying its spirit during the years of the Fascist period.

The exhibition path traces the artist's work in the decade 1934-1943, during her first stay in Italy, capturing with her Leica, through her original gaze, the lives of ordinary people, such as the women in the series about Scanno - living artworks -, places, everyday life, festive occasions and artistic treasures, leaving an extraordinary social and cultural testimony. 

On display, for the first time together, about one hundred images, among commissions for art historians and reportage photography, from the Hilde Lotz-Bauer Archive in London, the two Max Planck Institutes - the Hertziana Library in Rome and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence - and the collection of photographer Franz Schlechter in Heidelberg, including some from the project on Frederick II's Castles in Southern Italy and the one on Florentine town planning commissioned by the director of the Florentine institute Friedrich Kriegbaum.

Curated by Federica Kappler and Corinna Lotz, the artist's daughter, the exhibition is promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali. Organisation Hilde Lotz-Bauer Archive. Museum services by Zètema Progetto Cultura. In collaboration with OFFICINE FOTOGRAFICHE ROMA and Goethe-Institut.