The Wulz Sisters and the Reinvention of Italian Photography

For many years, the name of Wanda Wulz was associated almost exclusively with a single photograph. Io + gatto (Me + Cat), the celebrated 1932 self-portrait created by superimposing the artist's face with that of her cat, became one of the most recognisable images of the Italian avant-garde. Yet the story of Wanda and Marion Wulz extends far beyond that iconic work. From 16 September to 20 December 2026, London's Estorick Collection presents Wanda and Marion Wulz: Avant-Garde Photography in 20th-Century Italy, a major exhibition exploring the careers of two key figures in twentieth-century Italian photography. Organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia, the exhibition goes beyond the sisters' most famous works to tell the story of a family that documented life in Trieste for more than a century. The story begins with Giuseppe Wulz, who opened his photographic studio in the second half of the nineteenth century. The business was later continued by his son Carlo and eventually by Wanda and Marion, who inherited the studio in 1928 and transformed it into one of the city's cultural landmarks. Trieste is far more than a backdrop to this story. A port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a border city and a meeting point of cultures, it was one of the most dynamic urban environments in Central Europe between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Wulz sisters' photographs capture this changing world through portraits, urban scenes and images of artists, dancers, athletes, writers and professionals who animated the city's cultural life. Alongside their commercial practice, the sisters developed a personal artistic language that placed them within the broader context of European modernism. In their work, photography became a tool for exploring identity, formal experimentation and the social transformations of the early twentieth century. Wanda in particular embraced techniques such as double exposure, photomontage and photographic dynamism, engaging directly with the visual innovations of the European avant-garde. A turning point came in 1932, when Wanda participated in the National Exhibition of Futurist Photography in Trieste. Her encounter with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti brought her into direct contact with Futurism and inspired some of her most experimental works. It was in this context that Io + gatto was created. By merging human and animal features into a single image, Wanda produced a self-portrait that remains strikingly modern and visually unsettling nearly a century later. Reducing her career to this single photograph, however, would overlook the broader significance of the sisters' work. The exhibition places particular emphasis on their shared creative practice and on their interest in representing the modern woman. Actresses, gymnasts, dancers, athletes, artists and professionals appear frequently in their photographs. These images record the emergence of new female identities and reflect changing ideas of autonomy, self-representation and social roles during the interwar years. Another compelling aspect of the exhibition is its exploration of the relationship between artistic experimentation and professional practice. The Wulz sisters were not working on the margins of society. They ran a successful photographic studio, producing portraits, commercial commissions and professional assignments. Their avant-garde research emerged from everyday photographic practice rather than in opposition to it. This coexistence of innovation and craftsmanship is one of the distinctive features of their contribution to Italian photography. The exhibition also includes photographs taken during the Second World War and the decades that followed, offering a visual record of Trieste during one of the most complex periods in its history. Through the sisters' lens, visitors encounter not only the story of two photographers, but also that of a border city shaped by profound political, cultural and social change throughout the twentieth century. Nearly a century after their most innovative experiments, Wanda and Marion Wulz appear less as isolated figures than as protagonists of a story that is still being written. It is a story that intersects with Futurism, women's emancipation, studio photography and the construction of modern Italian visual culture, with twentieth-century Trieste serving as one of its most fertile laboratories.