Van Straten, Rebecca;
(2025)
Olivetti and Photography in the 1960s: An Untyped History.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This dissertation rethinks a history of Italian typewriter manufacturer and design firm Olivetti through an analysis of its photographic commissions over the 1960s. Histories of the company have failed to attend to a pivotal aspect of its management, namely its visual politics. This dissertation reflects on the reasons behind this oversight by considering the part that photography played in the broadcasting and selling of Olivetti as a brand, both nationally and internationally. An investigation of the firm’s use of the medium raises questions on how, in the aftermath of the war and in the wake of Americanisation and modernisation, Italy defined itself as a nation and how photography participated in that process. By doing so, this thesis intervenes in two areas of study: the history and legacy of Olivetti, and the history of Italian photography. It argues that they need to be thought together. This thesis looks across a range of publications at Olivetti and other firms to build a picture of three sites of contention in modernising Italy: the worker, the South, and the nation. In this project, the printed page plays an important role as an archival tool, as a historiographical device, and allows to overcome the loss or lack of information that comes from a late institutionalisation of photography in Italy.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Olivetti and Photography in the 1960s: An Untyped History |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History of Art |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205976 |
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