The cat that fought Mussolini: how the Wulz photography sisters weaponised the family pet
Wanda and Marion Wulz defied the unbridled patriarchy of fascist Italy by shooting dancers, fencers and other famous women – as well as their cat Mucincina ‘In those fascist times,” says Federica Muzzarelli of Italy in the 1920s and 30s, “women were not free.
They were regarded as mothers and homemakers.
But the Wulz sisters were determined to create their own destiny.
They chose photography as a way of being independent – and to show through their images that women could live that way.” Muzzarelli is the curator of Wanda and Marion Wulz: Avant-Garde Photography in 20th Century Italy, a show about to open at the Estorick Collection in London.
The Wulz sisters experimented with blended and altered images more than half a century before Photoshop was invented.
The most famous image to emerge from their studio was I + Cat, a self-portrait of Wanda superimposed on the face of the family pet.
But the show aims to cast Marion in a new light, showing that she was no mere assistant, but rather equal to her sister in terms of photography, as they championed feminism in fascist Italy, keeping the idea of women’s emancipation alive at a time of unbridled patriarchal ideology.
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