Descriptive Summary
Biographical / Historical
Other Finding Aid
Administrative Information
Separated Material
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Foto arte minore: Max Hutzel photographs of art and architecture in
Italy
Date (inclusive): 1960-1990
Number: 86.P.8
Creator/Collector:
Hutzel, Max
Physical Description:
915 boxes
(circa 67,275 black-and-white photographic prints, circa 86,400
black-and-white negatives)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: This collection contains thorough
photographic documentation by Max Hutzel of art and architecture in Italy ranging in date
from Antiquity to late Baroque. Included are photographs of secular buildings, museum
holdings, ancient ruins, and religious institutions covering a broad range of artistic forms
and styles, including architecture, paintings, frescoes, sculpture, manuscripts, metalwork
and other minor arts. The regions most heavily represented are: the Abruzzi, Lazio
(including Rome), the Marches, and Umbria.
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Language: Collection material is in
English .
Biographical / Historical
German-born photographer and scholar Max Hutzel (1911-1988) photographed in Italy from the
early 1960s until the late 1980s, resulting in a vast body of photographs that he referred
to as "Foto arte minore." Over the years he amassed a collection of about one million
negatives and sold his photographs to individual scholars for publication and to
institutions such as the Biblioteca Herziana, the National Gallery in Washington, and the
Kunsthistorische Institut in Florence. He used the revenue from these sales, in addition to
some financial support he received from his brother in Germany, to continue his work until
his death.
Hutzel studied printmaking and graphics in Stuttgart. Impressed by Walter Gropius and the
Bauhaus School, he developed a deep interest in photography and studied with Paul Wolff.
After World War II, he settled in Italy and by the beginning of the 1960's, he had devoted
himself to the photographic documentation of art and architecture. Applying techniques and
aesthetic solutions he learned from the Bauhaus movement, Hutzel's approach went beyond the
purely documentary. His photography represented his artistic interpretation of Italian art
and his sense of being in a specific place. He compared himself to the European scholars and
researchers who traveled through Italy drawing in their notebooks as they studied the
history and archeological artifacts of the region.
Hutzel comprehensively documented lesser known monuments, attempting to include everything
that is connected with art historical development in Italy up to the 18th century:
architecture, sculpture, wall painting, panel painting, museum objects and religious
artifacts from the Etruscan and Roman civilizations and the early Medieval, Romanesque,
Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods. In order to document architecture within its
topographical context, he often photographed general and panoramic views of towns seen from
afar, streets, and clusters of buildings. He also provided a glimpse of the social context
by sometimes including residents, passersby, and vehicles.
Other Finding Aid
Administrative Information
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Foto arte minore: Max Hutzel photographs of art and architecture in Italy, 1960-1990. The
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 86.P.8.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa86p8
Processing Information
A preliminary box list was created by Martha Steele in 2008. In 2011 Laney McGlohon
transformed the box list into an EAD finding aid and incorporated metadata from the GRI's
Photo Archive Database, and in 2012 she added links to the digital collection. Andra
Darlington completed the finding aid in 2012, adapting text by Tracey Schuster for the
collection notes.
Digital Collection
The photographic prints and accompanying lists have been digitized and made available
online.
Click here to view all digital images or click the links in the
container list to see digital images of specific subjects.
Separated Material
A number of Hutzel photographs and approximately 800 photographs by Hutzel's assistant,
Roberto Sigismondi, were removed from this collection and interfiled with the core
collection of the repository's Photo Archive.
Scope and Content of Collection
Max Hutzel's "Foto arte minore" project comprises thorough photographic documentation of
art historical development in Italy up to the 18th century, including objects of the
Etruscans and the Romans, as well as early Medieval, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and
Baroque monuments. Consonant with Hutzel's belief that throughout Italy there are minor
artistic centers that deserve attention, sites depicted are frequently obscure and
previously undocumented. Hutzel's work is typified by a feeling for place that goes beyond
the purely documentary. The collection contains more than 67,000 black-and-white prints and
approximately 86,400 black-and-white negatives. Because Hutzel carefully cropped his images
for printing, the prints more accurately represent his style than the negatives.
Included is thorough interior and exterior documentation of secular buildings, museum
holdings, ancient ruins, and religious institutions covering a broad range of artistic forms
and styles, including architecture, painting, frescoes, sculpture, manuscripts, metalwork
and other minor arts, ranging in date from Antiquity to late Baroque. The regions most
heavily represented are: the Abruzzi, Lazio (including Rome), the Marches, and Umbria.
Additional photos cover sites in: Basilicata, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia
Guilia, Lombardy, Piedmont, Puglia, Sardinia, Tuscany, and Veneto.
Also included are circa 825 photographs of medieval buildings and art in Campania, in the
ancient region called "Campi Flegrei," made in 1990 by Roberto Sigismondi, Hutzel's
long-time assistant (some 800 additional images from this campaign have been removed and
interfiled in the Antiquities section of the Getty Research Institute's Photo Archive).
Missing from this collection are many Hutzel photographs that were separated in the 1980s
and 1990s and integrated into the core collections of the Photo Archive.
Photographs are generally accompanied by typed lists that include the names of the sites
and often additional information such as narrative descriptions, church dedications,
locations of photographed details, label information for museum objects, and information
provided to Hutzel by local inhabitants. Hutzel frequently added his own personal commentary
regarding the condition of many sites.
The photographic prints and accompanying lists have been digitized and the images are
available online.
Click here to view all
digital images
or see the container list for links to images of specific
subjects.
Arrangement
Arranged into 17 series: Series I. Abruzzo; Series II. Basilicata; Series III. Campania;
Series IV. Emilia-Romagna; Series V. Friuli-Venezia Giulia; Series VI. Lazio; Series VII.
Lombardia; Series VIII. Marches; Series IX. Molise; Series X. Piedmont; Series XI. Puglia;
Series XII. Republic of San Marino; Series XIII. Sardinia; Series XIV. Tuscany; Series XV.
Umbria; Series XVI. Veneto; Series XVII. Negatives.
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Topics
Architecture, Ancient -- Italy
Streets -- Italy
Architecture, Medieval -- Italy
Architecture, Baroque -- Italy
Architecture -- Italy
Architecture, Renaissance -- Italy
Art -- Italy
Art, Italian
Decorative arts -- Italy
Cities and towns -- Italy
Sculpture, Italian
Painting, Italian
Genres and Forms of Material
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Black-and-white negatives
Contributors
Hutzel, Max
Sigismondi, Roberto