Chiara Samugheo

• Name — Chiara Samugheo • Birth Name — Chiara Paparella • Born — 25 March 1925 • Birthplace — Bari • Died — 13 January 2022 • Place of death — Bari • Known for — photojournalism, celebrity photographs

Samugheo was born in Bari, Italy in 1925, although throughout her life she gave 1935 as her year of birth. As a youngster she dreamed of composing music, and against the wishes of her parents, who would have her be a school teacher, Samugheo left for Milan in 1953. There she mixed with the intellectual and artistic environment of Enzo Biagi, Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giorgio Strehler, who suggested she study acting and mime. As reported by in Il Fatto Quotidiano by Serena Viola "I escaped to Milan, where my life changed," meeting there her life partner Pasquale Prunas, founder of the magazine Sud for which Domenico Rea and Francesco Rosi wrote.

Needing a job, since her parents, in order to persuade her to return to Bari, had cut off her allowance, Samugheo accepted her first commission; to go to Predappio, the home of the Mussolini family. She then photographed women in Galatina, the invasate, possessed with Tarantism, who would travel to the Chapel of Saint Paul (Chiesa di San Paolo) to seek healing from a "spider bite" that caused hysteria, depression, or convulsions. Inspired by Patellani's photojournalism, Chiara Samugheo's 1955 fotodocumentari, reportage on poverty Naples with text by Domenico Rea, brought her to attention. It was a confrontational and frank recording of starving populations, in an accusatory spirit about the shame of 'this Italy'. Most striking is a flash-lit portrait of a screaming mother which was dominant in the layout. Her work was published in Cinema Nuovo, established by film critic Guido Aristarco in 1952 who supported neorealist cinema of Italy through his articles published in the magazine, and was arrested on 10 September 1953, and convicted of "press crimes" for publishing the story of "L'armata s'agapò" (the Army was Asleep). War, fascism, poverty and the resistance were now no longer permitted topics, and no longer tolerated by the Christian Democrat censors. Such was the climate in which Cinema Nuovo published important photodocumentaries, such as those by Samugheo and Franco Pinna, Carlo Cisventi, Benedetto Benedetti, Paolo Costa. Samugheo continued to work, very successfully, for illustrated magazines like Tempo, Epoca and Paris Match. Carlotti writes of two "schools" of freelancers that emerged in the early 1950s and places Samugheo in Milan's alongside "Mario Dondero, Ugo Mulas, Alfa Castaldi, Carlo Bavagnoli...and Uliano Lucas" while the other group, in Rome, comprised: Antonio and Nicola Sansone, Franco Pinna, Calogero Cascio, and Mario Carubba, to name just a few. These new photographers did not work on commission but rather submitted their work to newspapers themselves. They were familiar with, and inspired by, the work of great foreign photographers, and had magazines like Paris Match, Stern, and of course Look and Life in mind.

• 1996, to 31 January: Chiara Samugheo: Al cinema con le stelle. Istituto Internazionale per l'Arte Contemporanea, Via Adda, Milan • 1999, February: 39th Monte Carlo International Television Festival, Palazzo dei Congressi, Rome • 2000, January: Palais de l'Europe, 8 Av. Boyer, Menton, France • 2004, 8 March–9 May: Chiara Samugheo: Le Parmigiane. Palazzo Pigorini, strada Repubblica 29, Parma • 2002, January: Ritratto d'una diva, Centro Universitario Mediterraneo, Promenade des Anglais, Noto, Sicily • 2006, from 9 April: Vicini alle stelle, Sarti Shaw, Chiara Samugheo, Tazio Secchiaroli, curators Amiand Deriaz and Uliano Lucas. Mazzotta Foundation, Milan • 2007, 30 June–14 October: Fellini privat: il maestro fotografato da Chiara Samugheo. Remini, Museo Fellini • 2012, 7 June: Off the set. Chiara Samugheo’s photographs for cinema. Museo Nazionale del Cinema - Fondazione M. A. Prolo, Torino, Italia Collections • Museum of Fine Arts Houston • CSAC - Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione (Abbazia di Valserena) of University of Parma.