Edith Tudor Hart: Between photography and espionage

For the first time in Italy, Palazzo Pepoli – Museum of the History of Bologna hosts a major retrospective dedicated to Edith Tudor-Hart (1908–1973), an Anglo-Austrian photographer and one of the most significant figures in 20th-century European social and documentary photography. Presented by Ergo Expo, the exhibition runs from 24 October 2026 to 28 February 2027.

Tudor-Hart, who also trained at the Bauhaus in Dessau, documented the social and political transformations of her time between the 1930s and 1950s. Her photographs explored poverty and inequality, working-class life, women’s rights, childhood and political movements, from interwar Vienna to Great Britain.

Alongside her career as a photographer, Tudor-Hart led a secret life as an agent linked to Soviet intelligence. Declassified British documents have also revealed her role in the story of the Cambridge Five, one of the most famous spy networks of the 20th century.

The exhibition brings together more than 100 photographs, arranged in five thematic sections, alongside magazines, personal documents, private papers and material from the British intelligence services. The exhibition rediscovers the work and extraordinary story of the “agent with a camera”, whose contribution remained largely overlooked in the history of photography for decades.

The exhibition is curated by ONO arte, in collaboration with the FOTOHOF archive in Salzburg.