major retrospective at the Château de Tours, with the Jeu de Paume

At the Château de Tours, the Jeu de Paume pays tribute to Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022), today considered one of the great photographers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The Italian artist has dealt with many subjects, but it is above all her work on the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, which made her famous.

Born in Palermo, capital of Sicily, in 1935, Letizia Battaglia was married at the age of 16. Her literary ambitions are hampered by a husband who confines her to the role of housewife and mother. It was only after her divorce that she began a career as a journalist, in Milan, at the dawn of the 1970s. With reports on the evolution of morals in Italy for different magazines, where she signed both the article and the photographs which illustrate it.

“She was more into writing initially and her career as a photographer started quite lateexplains Walter Guadagnini, curator of the exhibition and director of Camera, Italian center for photography. She had to resort to learning the technique, which didn’t interest her much. For her, it was the heart that counted, the courage to take the photo.”

Letizia Battaglia demonstrated her great courage in 1974, after her return to Palermo. She became the director of the photo department of the daily newspaper L’Ora, and documented day after day the tragic mafia events that bloodied Sicily for more than a decade. Photographing crime scenes and corpses, funerals and arrests without any filter, getting as close as possible to the scene.

While the main protagonists of her photos, magistrates and police officers, die murdered, Letizia puts her life in danger with her photos of victims displayed in newspapers and in public spaces. She must also establish herself as a woman in a professional world and a society that is still very macho.

The two major themes of his career are, on the one hand, death, and on the other, life. She explained that she had encountered death because it was her job, and that she wanted to bear witness to it so that the people would stand up against the mafia. And then there were his numerous photos of children, of young people, who certainly represented in his eyes the hope of a better world.

Walter Guadagnini, Commissioner of the Exposition Letizia Battaglia

The immense work (more than 500,000 photographs!) of Letizia Battaglia is not limited, in fact, to the mafia wars which bloodied Italy at that time. In Sicily, she photographs with passion all aspects of island life, its complexity and its contrasts, between the extreme poverty that reigns there and the wealthy classes of the region. She denounces the devastated social and urban reality of Palermo, regularly represents the most vulnerable populations, particularly women and children.

In 1986, following the investigative work carried out by magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the “Palermo maxi-trial” began against the killers of Cosa Nostra, but especially against the clan leaders and their political allies. The convictions handed down in 1992 were followed by the assassinations of the two investigating judges and their escorts. Letizia Battaglia puts an end to her activity as a photojournalist, exhausted by her daily contact with violence and death, and by the apparent incapacity of the city of Palermo to rebel against this state of affairs.

Letizia Battaglia exhibition at the Château de Tours, until May 18, 2025.

Opening times, prices and information on the Château website.