Women Photographers in Italy: The Work of Edith Arnaldi

Abstract Following the current perspectives offered by international gender and feminist studies, this paper aims to analyze the history of a very interdisciplinary artist, Edith Arnaldi, for her pioneering role in the history of Italian photography. Even if Arnaldi has been deeply studied as an illustrator and writer within Italian futurism, her photographic production has been the subject of little interest in scholarly context until recently. This article is intended to provide an opportunity to reflect on her photographic production in relation to early twentieth-century art and photography in Italy, especially for what concerns the so-called photography of the invisible, to verify the extent to which her interest in the medium of photography and her special attraction for female portraits can be read from a gender perspective and not only for its impact on her literary and pictorial work.