To mark the 180th anniversary of the birth of photography, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini Institute of Theatre and Opera, in collaboration with Fondazione Fratelli Alinari per la Storia della Fotografia, has organised a conference on the relationship between the nascent art of photography and the world of Italian theatre during the Belle Époque.
The aim of the meeting is to study 19th- and early 20th-century photographic production with an emphasis on the kind of “elective affinity” between theatrical practice and photographic practice that strongly characterised the early decades in the history of photography. To understand the main features of this phenomenon and study their repercussions on the theatrical world
and society of the time, the conference will identify the photographers who dealt with the genre and then reconstruct their relationships with the stage actors or companies they portrayed. There will be a special focus on portraits of actresses and the diffusion of this type of photograph in the popular and specialised press. With an advisory committee made up of Maria Ida Biggi, Stefano Mazzoni, Tiziana Serena, Emanuela Sesti and Marianna Zannoni, the conference will be jointly held with the University of Florence and Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, under the patronage of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD, Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation) and the Società Italiana per lo Studio della Fotografia (SISF, Italian Society for the Study of Photography). The event will enjoy the support of the Fondazione Venezia.

Download the program Teatro in fotografia