Letizia Battaglia

photographer

Italian^[1,2] b. 5 March 1935, Palermo, Italy^[1,2] d. 13 April 2022, Cefalù, Italy^[1,2] active 1969–2022

Letizia Battaglia (1935–2022) was a prominent Italian photojournalist and photographer known for her courageous documentation of Sicilian life. Starting her career as a journalist in 1969, she became the first female photographer for the Italian daily press. From 1974 to 1990, she headed the photo department of L'Ora in Palermo, where she captured numerous scenes of mafia crimes and arrests despite receiving death threats. Her work is characterized by a raw, humanist approach to documenting social injustice, poverty, and the brutal reality of organized crime in Sicily. In her later years, her work also explored female nudes as a form of artistic expression.^[1,2,3]

• Mafia
• Sicily
• Social injustice
• Poverty