Out of the Studio: Female Photographers in the RIBA Collections
Presentation Type
Event
Start Date
8-3-2026 3:32 PM
Description
While female photographers had traditionally specialised in portraiture and still life, at the beginning of the 20th century many of them left the studio and started either working in social documentary or capturing the built and natural environment. The RIBA Photographs Collection, one of the richest and most extensive repositories of architectural imagery worldwide, includes the work of several female photographers but the disproportionate majority in the collection of their male counterparts tells a very clear story: this was not a field in which many women have been willing to specialise, at least until the 21st century, which has undoubtedly seen an increase in the number of female architectural photographers. This presentation will include images of a few renowned names such as Edith Tudor-Hart and Hélène Binet, but especially feature the work of little-known 20th century photographers, some of them non-professional but with an editorial or literary background.
Valeria Carullo is Photographs Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her principal area of research is the relationship between modern architecture and modern photography in the inter-war years. She has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, both in Britain and abroad, including Ordinary Beauty: The Photography of Edwin Smith (RIBA Architecture Gallery, London, 2014), Eternal City: Rome in the Photographs Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Vittoriano, Rome, 2018), Rationalism on Set: Glamour and Modernity in 1930s Italian Cinema (Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London, 2018, and The Mac, Belfast, 2019) and Wide-Angle View: architecture as social space in the Manplan series 1969-70 (RIBA Architecture Gallery, London, 2023-24). Valeria regularly writes and lectures on both architectural and photographic subjects, and in 2019, she published the book Moholy-Nagy in Britain 1935-1937. She is co-organiser at the RIBA of the annual Colin Rowe Lectures, which explore the relationship between architecture and its image, and was the main organiser of the international symposium on architecture and photography “Building with Light”, held at the RIBA in 2014. In 2023 she organised the RIBA Photo Festival, the first international festival devoted to the photography of the built environment.
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
Carullo, Valeria, "Out of the Studio: Female Photographers in the RIBA Collections" (2026). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day. 37.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2026/schedule/37
Out of the Studio: Female Photographers in the RIBA Collections
While female photographers had traditionally specialised in portraiture and still life, at the beginning of the 20th century many of them left the studio and started either working in social documentary or capturing the built and natural environment. The RIBA Photographs Collection, one of the richest and most extensive repositories of architectural imagery worldwide, includes the work of several female photographers but the disproportionate majority in the collection of their male counterparts tells a very clear story: this was not a field in which many women have been willing to specialise, at least until the 21st century, which has undoubtedly seen an increase in the number of female architectural photographers. This presentation will include images of a few renowned names such as Edith Tudor-Hart and Hélène Binet, but especially feature the work of little-known 20th century photographers, some of them non-professional but with an editorial or literary background.
Valeria Carullo is Photographs Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her principal area of research is the relationship between modern architecture and modern photography in the inter-war years. She has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, both in Britain and abroad, including Ordinary Beauty: The Photography of Edwin Smith (RIBA Architecture Gallery, London, 2014), Eternal City: Rome in the Photographs Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Vittoriano, Rome, 2018), Rationalism on Set: Glamour and Modernity in 1930s Italian Cinema (Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London, 2018, and The Mac, Belfast, 2019) and Wide-Angle View: architecture as social space in the Manplan series 1969-70 (RIBA Architecture Gallery, London, 2023-24). Valeria regularly writes and lectures on both architectural and photographic subjects, and in 2019, she published the book Moholy-Nagy in Britain 1935-1937. She is co-organiser at the RIBA of the annual Colin Rowe Lectures, which explore the relationship between architecture and its image, and was the main organiser of the international symposium on architecture and photography “Building with Light”, held at the RIBA in 2014. In 2023 she organised the RIBA Photo Festival, the first international festival devoted to the photography of the built environment.