Please help fund Hilde in Italia

Your generosity is vital to help produce a powerful exhibition of pioneering woman photographer Hilde Lotz-Bauer who captured unique images of people, cityscapes, artworks and – equally important – a way of life of 1930s Italy.

As Gianni Berengo Gardin, one of Italy’s most distinguished photographers, writes: “With her Leica around her neck, Hilde Lotz-Bauer was a pioneer of reportage. Not only her images of Scanno but the many others taken in Italy reveal a personal gaze, which portrays everyday life with an attentive and sensitive eye.”

Lotz-Bauer’s family, who make this appeal, have worked with archivists and historians to put the show together. It is scheduled to run from January to May 2024 at the Museo di Roma Trastevere, under the auspices of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition will include some 200 photographs, selected from the Hilde Lotz-Bauer archive in London, the archives of the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz, the Biblioteca Hertziana in Rome and Franz Schlechter’s collection in Heidelberg. It will be accompanied by a catalogue in Italian and English with essays by distinguished photo-archivists and historians, plus an appreciation by Alessio de Stefano of the Piccola Biblioteca Marsicana. Research into Hilde’s correspondence with her mother and first husband Bernhard Degenhart contributes to an exciting view of her extraordinary life. The show is curated by Federica Kappler and Corinna Lotz.

However, £30,000 is needed to enable the work of this ground-breaking photographer to see the light of day.

Who was Hilde?

Born in Munich in 1907, Hilde Bauer grew up in the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) when women sought to break free of accepted roles of mother and housewife. She gained a doctorate in art history before going to Rome where she began working as freelance photographer.

Between 1933 and 1943 her images of sculpture, drawings, architecture and urbanism illustrated the research of art historians at the Max Planck art historical institutes in Florence and Rome. Hilde also took her handheld Leica camera out to rural towns and villages around the country, building up a unique social history of people and daily life.

Besides her keen eye for detail and composition perhaps her greatest achievement was the way she used sunlight, and the play of light and shadow, in each meticulously crafted image.

As one of the first ‘street photographers’, she turned her lens on people in small towns and the impoverished countryside where life went on as it had for centuries, revealing a largely undocumented Italy. People are shown, not lined up as ethnographic examples, but in everyday activity and social interaction.

After moving to Florence in 1939 collaborations with art historians resulted in masterful photographs of the city’s architecture and art treasures by Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists. Hilde fell in love with art historian Wolfgang Lotz (1912-1981) and they married in 1941.

Two years later, wartime circumstances forced her to leave Italy with their baby son Christoph and resettle in Austria. The couple were reunited in Munich after the war, where their daughters Irene and Corinna were born. The family later moved to the United States, where Wolfgang taught at Vassar college and New York University. They returned to Europe in 1962 when Wolfgang became director of Rome’s Bibliotheca Hertziana. Hilde died in Munich in 1999.

The painful reality facing us: to create and stage this exhibition we need around £30,000 funding to cover production costs.

Your contributions will be used for:

• Producing the images; printing, mounting and framing the photographs £7,500

• Exhibition creation, design and graphics, explanatory text panels and captions £3,500

• Marketing and publicity; producing video & flyers £3,200

• Transport (from London, Germany, Florence and Rome), insurance £3,500

• Curatorial fees, expenses, travel, accommodation £10,000

• Setup/dismantling the exhibition £1,000

Any donation you can make, whether large or small, will help to create an exhibition for many to enjoy!

Another great way for you to support this project is to spread the word: share this link by email, Facebook or Twitter with your friends and with anyone who would be interested!

Thank you for your support.

Irene and Corinna Lotz