Women in Maltese Photographic History | by Dr Charles Paul Azzopardi

The male-dominated business history of Maltese photography until now states that photography had no female protagonists in Malta until the Second World War, with the first Maltese female photographer, erroneously deemed Carmela Meilak, in Gozo. This is a significant lacuna, as new research has shown the presence of several other important female exponents in Maltese photography history. The role of women in photography is not limited purely to the role behind the camera but also in important roles such as the provision of the studio location, the financial clout to set up a photographic business as happened to Lucrezia Preziosi née Metropoli with her husband, Leandro Preziosi, Alphonsa Ellis née Curmi with Malta’s foremost Victorian-era photographer, Richard Ellis, as well as Giuseppa Cali née Grech Cumbo, who inherited her father’s photographic business as her wedding dowry and lent her name to the studio of G. G. Cumbo. This presentation aims to correct the historical inaccuracies regarding the apparent lack of female participation in Maltese photographic business history and to document, for the first time, the burgeoning women involved in photography, thereby providing a more holistic account of female involvement in the early history of Maltese photography.

About the Speaker
Dr Charles Paul Azzopardi is a Maltese photo-historian whose research expertise delves into the photographic practices of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Malta. He is a doctoral candidate at the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester. He has made significant contributions as a curator and photographic cultural heritage consultant at the National Archives of Malta and the Richard Ellis Archive. Azzopardi's research and photography have been published in over forty monographs, further solidifying his standing in photography and publishing. He is also the founder of the Malta Image Preservation Archive (MIPA), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to preserving and digitising Maltese photographic cultural heritage and serving as a lobby group advocating for the development of a museum of Maltese photographic history and a national photographic collection.
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