Denis Curti remembers Letizia Battaglia: photographer of the mafia and women

Denis Curti, curator and friend, recalls Letizia Battaglia (Palermo, 1935-2022) in a personal tribute published on Artribune. Battaglia, a self-taught photojournalist, began photographing in 1974 and covered Palermo's crime beat for nearly twenty years, primarily for the newspaper L'Ora. Her work documented the rise of Cosa Nostra from drug trafficking to construction and political infiltration. She formed a group of photojournalists at L'Ora, working at a frenetic pace with ethical urgency. Battaglia's instinctive, unmediated images were selected later for their political message. A key image is the 1993 photograph of Rosa Schifani, widow of Vito Schifani (killed in the 1992 Capaci bombing), closing her eyes—a symbol closing a long period of violence. Battaglia was the first European woman to receive the Eugene Smith Grant. She considered the award a recognition of her combativeness, not photographic quality. Despite trauma that temporarily drove her from photography, she continued seeking the gaze of women and girls in her images. Curti also recounts a 2019 exhibition 'L'Italia dei fotografi' at Museo M9 in Mestre, for which he wrote about Battaglia's work.