Carmel Vitullo


Carmel Vitullo is an American street photographer whose imagery of Rhode Island have been acquired for a number of collections.

Biography

Carmel Vitullo was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 16, 1925, into the small Italian community of Federal Hill. After high school Vitullo enrolled in a major in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, but abandoned it for the medium of photography about which she was more passionate. In further study at the New York Institute of Photography she discovered the work of Henri Cartier Bresson and she continued to be an exponent and practitioner of street photography. A majority of her photographs depict the neighbourhood of Rhode Island in the 1950s and the first Newport Jazz Festival. She ran a studio in a South Water Street warehouse in the 1960s. Her commercial practice was in portrait and industrial photography and in her sixties after her retirement, and while living in North Providence, she was working as a producer in cable television.

Recognition

In the 1950s Vitullo approached Edward Steichen with her portfolio. He selected her photograph of displaced refugees at Grand Central Terminal en route to a relocation centre, for the Museum of Modern Art world-touring exhibition The Family of Man, which was seen by 9 million visitors. Her print was exhibited in the section ‘Rebels’ at the end of a row of six, hard against the adjoining wall, in sympathy with the entrapment of the subjects who are seated, frieze-like, along a bench parallel to the picture plane. Stacked on a cart in front of them are their suitcases labeled with stickers of the NCWC, the social Catholic organization helping immigrants relocate to the United States and confirming their identity as immigrants. Disquieting, confusing spots of light from the skylight fall across the scene and add to the pervasive anxiety evident in the expressions of the men, women, and children. The inclusion in The Family of Man and its accompanying catalogue came as a breakthrough for Vitullo. Since then she has exhibited alongside Harry Callahan, O. Winston Link and others and her work has been collected by major institutions.

Exhibitions

Collections