Getty Museum
The Lusetti Family, Luzzara, Italy
Creator
Paul StrandAmerican Photographer · 1890–1976
All works by this person →Paul Strand began photographing in New York in the 1910s. During the early 1920s he received recognition for both his painting and his photography. He visited New Mexico in 1926 and, beginning in 1930, returned for three consecutive summers, making portraits of artist friends and acquaintances. It was there, amidst a community of visual artists and writers, that Strand began to develop his belief
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1953
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In 1953, still searching for his ideal village, Paul Strand ventured to Italy, where he finally decided on the community of Luzzara after the Italian filmmaker Cesare Zavattini (1902-1989) introduced him to the place. The two men had met earlier, in 1949, at the International Film Conference held in Perugia, Italy. Strand wanted to continue with the now-successful combination of images and words and asked Zavattini to assist him with this particular project. Unlike his previous publications, which were broader in scope, this volume focused specifically on one site and its residents. The resulting photographs and text were published in 1955 as the book _Un paese: Portrait of an Italian Village_. When Strand was in Luzzara, it was less than a decade after the end of World War II. The pain and sorrow of the conflict were still very tangible for most townspeople, all of whom had been affected in some way. In this portrait of the Lusetti family, Anna Spagiari Lusetti is surrounded by four of her sons: Bruno, Guerrino, Afro, and Remo. Her story is one of personal loss and hardship. Married at eighteen, she bore fifteen children, four of whom died young. Her husband, after enduring years of politically motivated beatings, died on Christmas Eve in 1933, and all but one of her sons fought in the war. At the time of this photograph, the mother and five of her offspring were living together in the small house, barely surviving on the little money they made from working the land. Strand deliberately arranged the composition, placing the sons around their mother, who stands erect in the doorway, her strong features visible in their faces. Originally published in _Paul Strand_, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Anne M. Lyden (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 78. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.
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