Lisetta Carmi was born in 1924 to a Jewish family in Genoa. Having initially studied music, Carmi became a fairly famous concert pianist, before turning to photography in the 1960s. Although her career as a photographer lasted only eighteen years, it resulted in a major body of work. ​

Carmi saw photography as an important tool for ‘understanding’ reality. The sole purpose of her gaze was to give a voice to the voiceless, highlighting social injustices. Among her most important series of photographs are those on the theme of work: Genova Porto (1964), in which she focuses on the difficult working conditions of the port workers, and the series Italsider (1962), dedicated to capturing the most spectacular and dangerous processes in Genoa’s steel industry. In the series Erotismo e autoritarismo a Staglieno (1966) she proposes an unconventional reading of funerary statuary, through the images of the sculptures in the historical cemetery of Genoa. She also made a series of famous portraits of Ezra Pound for which she won the Niépce prize, as well as portraits of Lucio Fontana, Leonardo Sciascia, Claudio Abbado, Luigi Nono, Sylvano Bussotti and Jacques Lacan.The indomitable desire to understand and to explore drives Carmi to Europe and to distant countries such as Israel, Latin America, Afghanistan and India. Her images remain an indispensable tool for the historical knowledge of these places and realities. ​

One of her most important series – I Travestiti – was shot in Genoa from 1965 to the early 1970s. It is an intimate and deeply sensitive meditation on sexual identity. The honesty of her gaze and her empathy with her subjects, caused this photographic essay to be related to works of photographers such as Christer Strömholm and Nan Goldin. ​

Lisetta Carmi (b. 1924, Genova) lives in Cisternino. Recent solo exhibitions include: La Sardegna, MAN, Nuoro (2020); Da Genova verso il resto del mondo, Centro Italiano della Fotografa​ d’Autore, Bibbiena (2019); La Bellezza della Verita, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2018); Below the mantle, Antoine Levi, Paris (2018). Group Exhibition (selection): FUORI, Quadriennale di Roma (2020); Nouvel accrochage de la collection, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne (2019); L’altro sguardo. Fotografe italiane 1965 – 2018, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2018); TV 70: Francesco Vezzoli guarda la Rai, cur. by Francesco Vezzoli, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2017).