Trying to make sense of the history of Italian photojournalism? It runs from prewar press agencies through Neorealism’s postwar golden age to the archives preserved today.
This guide sits within the wider topic of italian photojournalism.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Publifoto agency founded in Milan | 1937 |
| Agency renamed “Publifoto” | 1939 |
| Size of the Publifoto archive | Around seven million photos |
| Archive acquired by Intesa Sanpaolo | 2015 |
| 2018 NeoRealismo exhibition in New York | 175 images by over 60 Italian photographers |
These figures come from Intesa Sanpaolo’s Progetto Cultura page and MonoVisions. Figures can change as archives are catalogued, so check the source before you rely on them.
Fascist-era roots and the first private agency
Photography served the press and the state well before the war ended. The text of the NeoRealismo exhibition describes the Fascist regime’s use of photography as an instrument of communication that reached the masses despite widespread illiteracy, as MonoVisions reports.
The private side of the story starts in Milan. Vincenzo Carrese founded his agency in 1937, and Intesa Sanpaolo describes it as Italy’s first private photojournalism agency. It took the name Publifoto in 1939.
Carrese did not start from nothing. According to the World ORT Archive, he was the Italian representative of Wide World Photos and of the New York Times photographic agency from 1927, and of the English Keystone from 1929. He had also been called to run the internal photographic service of Corriere della Sera.
The same source points to a few practical strengths of the agency:
- A large group of photographers available night and day, able to document any type of event.
- An internal printing laboratory that let prints be made up quickly.
- A Rome branch directed by Carrese’s brother Carlo.
- Further branches in Turin, Naples, Palermo and Genoa, opened only after the war.
Neorealism and the golden age of the illustrated press
By the end of the war, Italy was in ruins. The exhibition text says photographers, along with filmmakers, documented the difficult conditions of everyday life while also communicating the country’s sense of vitality and its hopes for the future, according to MonoVisions.
The same page says neorealism reached the height of its popularity in the 1950s. It is mostly linked with cinema and literature, but the exhibition, which covered 1932-1960, put the period’s photographers in the foreground.
Its section on the illustrated press marks what it calls neorealism’s golden age. Photographers were often hired to work on editorial teams, and photographic narratives in newspapers and magazines came to resemble cinematography, with multiple-page spreads, special supplements and serialized articles.
The exhibition showed work by photographers whose names still come up in Italian photo history. Examples listed on the page include:
- Mario De Biasi, Sunday in August, Milan, 1949, and The Italians turn around, Milan, 1954.
- Mario Cattaneo, from the series Alleys in Naples, 1951-1958.
- Piergiorgio Branzi, Piazza Grande in Burano, Venice, 1957.
- Stefano Robino, Seeing off the Cristoforo Colombo, Genoa, 1959.
Profiles of individual photographers are collected in this guide to famous italian photojournalists.
How did photographers map postwar Italy?
The exhibition’s ethnographic investigation section chronicles how photographers traveled to every corner of the peninsula. Their aim, in the page’s words, was to rebuild a collective identity through individual differences and intimate gestures, as reported by MonoVisions.
Photography historian Antonella Russo covers this turn in her 2022 book, a 218-page study published by Routledge. The publisher’s description says it examines the ethno(photo)graphic missions of Ernesto De Martino in the deep South of Italy.
It also names the writer and painter Carlo Levi as an “ambassador of international photography”. The same description mentions the journeys of David Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Paul Strand in Neorealist Italy.
Photo clubs, debate and the decline of Neorealism
Photographers did not agree on what their work was for. The exhibition ends with the establishment of photo clubs where members hotly debated the creative value of the medium, laying the foundations for photographic criticism in Italy, says MonoVisions.
Two opposing schools arose. For some, neorealism was a rigid approach that stifled free expression. For others, photography that lost its connection to real life risked becoming a formal exercise appreciated by only a select few.
Russo’s book follows the movement’s popularization and its later co-optation with the industrialization of photographic magazines, and then its decline, according to Routledge. It also treats non-objective photography, which thrived soon after the war, and argues against the myth that all Italian postwar photography was Neorealist.
From agency archives to museum walls
After the war, Publifoto kept working with the press. The World ORT Archive lists L’Unità (for a short period), L’Europeo, Ansa and Il Giorno among its collaborations.
Carrese died suddenly in 1981, and the agency continued under his children Ferdinando and Manuela. The same source says the archive was later sold to Olivetti and then purchased in 1997 by the Fotocronache Olympia agency.
In 2015 Intesa Sanpaolo acquired it. The Progetto Cultura page says it holds around seven million photos dating from the early 1930s to the 1990s, and calls Publifoto a training ground for Fedele Toscani, Tino Petrelli, Peppino Giovi and Carlo Ancillotti.
A 2019 book edited by Aldo Grasso, Walter Guadagnini and Barbara Costa followed an exhibition titled “Nel mirino”. The sources used here stop at the archive’s 1990s material, so for a present-day showcase of ethical photography, read about the festival della fotografia etica lodi.
Frequently asked questions
When was Italy’s first private photojournalism agency founded?
Show answer
Vincenzo Carrese founded Publifoto’s predecessor in Milan in 1937, and it took the Publifoto name in 1939. Intesa Sanpaolo’s Progetto Cultura page calls it Italy’s first private photojournalism agency.
What was Neorealist photography?
Show answer
It was an approach and a mindset that, per the NeoRealismo exhibition text, reached the height of its popularity in the 1950s. Photographers documented postwar poverty, reconstruction and the many faces of the country.
Who documented the Italian South in this period?
Show answer
Russo’s book, as described by Routledge, examines the missions of Ernesto De Martino in the deep South. It also discusses the part played by Carlo Levi.
Where are Publifoto’s photographs kept?
Show answer
Intesa Sanpaolo acquired the archive in 2015. It consists of around seven million photos from the early 1930s to the 1990s.
