A pioneer of street photography: Hilde Lotz-Bauer on display in Rome

“With her Leica around her neck, Hilde Lotz-Bauer was one of the pioneers of reportage photography: not only the photos of Scanno, but the many others taken in Italy reveal a personal gaze, portraying the everyday with a careful and sensitive eye.” This is how Gianni Berengo Gardin described Hilde Lotz-Bauer (Munich, 1907 - 1999), a pioneer of street photography (or street photography), who photographed Italy in the 1930s by bringing to us unique images of the lives of ordinary people, places and artistic treasures of Italy.

Hilde Bauer, married first Degenhart and then Lotz, developed a personal and original artistic gaze during her first stay in Italy between 1934 and 1943. As she set foot on the peninsula she fell hopelessly in love with it. Rome, in particular, was a fundamental place for Hilde, lived and felt until the end as her true home; a city that at the Non-Catholic Cemetery preserves her memories today.

About a hundred photographs come to the exhibition from theHilde Lotz-Bauer archive in London, the two Max Planck Institutes for Art History - the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence - and the collection of photographer Franz Schlechter in Heidelberg. Exhibited together for the first time, the prints created by Hilde Lotz-Bauer’s skillful eye make up the photographic exhibition that will be hosted at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere from January 17 to May 5, 2024 under the title Hilde in Italy. Art and Life in the Photographs of Hilde Lotz-Bauer.

The exhibition is sponsored by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali. Organization Hilde Lotz-Bauer Archives. Curated by Federica Kappler and Corinna Lotz, daughter of Hilde Lotz-Bauer. Museum services by Zètema Progetto Cultura. In collaboration with OFFICINE FOTOGRAFICHE ROMA and Goethe-Institut. Media Partners Panzoo, Viviroma.it, Third Page Magazine. With the support of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Firecom automotive srl, Fredriksson arkitektkontor AB, Marie-Thérèse Ficnar-Usteri and Frances Aviva Blane.

Trained as a photographer at the Munich school after having already earned a Ph.D. in art history, she arrived in Rome in late 1934 on a travel grant from the Bibliotheca Hertziana, leaving her homeland just as National Socialism took power.

Her career began by photographing drawings for her first husband Bernhard Degenhart, a famous Italian drawing scholar. She later accompanied the research of numerous art historians with her photography; the exhibition will feature images from the project on Frederick II’s Castles in Southern Italy directed by art historian Leo Bruhns along with a selection of the photographs for the project on Florentine urbanism commissioned by Florentine Institute director Friedrich Kriegbaum. Hilde was the only professional photographer working at the Historical Institutes of Rome and Florence, producing impeccable images of sculpture, drawing, architecture and urbanism.

At the same time, whether on commissioned projects or for the sheer pleasure of discovery, the photographer traveled almost all of Italy, from north to south, moving among the people with her small portable Leica capturing the life of the cities as well as the more isolated rural areas, capturing almost unnoticed the whole humanity that inhabited these territories during the years of the Fascist Ventennio.

Much of Lotz-Bauer’s artistic work known to date focuses strongly on everyday and festive occasions, especially in Abruzzo. The women portrayed in the series on Scanno, immortalized in their handmade costumes, appear as living works of art. Hilde paid careful attention to the aesthetic composition and details, transforming the reportages into a unique artistic work, rich in personal insights and documentary on a critical and social level as well.

In the late 1970s, Hilde’s photographs were first presented in exhibitions in Florence, Bonn and London, to good critical acclaim. In 1993 she collaborated with photographer Franz Schlechter, who restored and printed 80 images taken with a Leica depicting Italian people, landscapes and cities for a solo exhibition at the Reiss Museum in Mannheim.

This exhibition will present the total body of work produced in the decade 1934-1943 by highlighting and dialoguing, for the first time, the two major aspects of her production: commissions for art historians and reportage photography, the gaze of an art historian and that of a photographer.

For all information, you can visit the official website of the Museo di Roma in Trastevere.

A pioneer of street photography: Hilde Lotz-Bauer on display in Rome

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