Letizia Battaglia: Anthology

A large selection of Letizia Battaglia’s iconic black and white images are presented in this catalog, guiding the reader along a journey into one of post-war Italy’s darkest periods. Drawing from Battaglia’s personal archive, the book also includes some of the photographer’s more recent projects. It offers a unique approach to her genre-defining work (often likened to that of American ‘crime’ photographer Weegee) and a chance to reflect on the role of photography as an individual and collective means for taking action, bearing witness, providing evidence and documenting history. The Daily Beast wrote that Battaglia’s pictures capture “Mafia judges and police officers, many dead in their cars with blood so fresh it glimmers like water.” Yet some present daily Sicilian life with “young girls playing on the cobbled streets and wealthy women in fur collars sipping champagne.” The breadth of Battaglia’s ouevre paints a portrait of Sicily across the turning point of the centuries.