Edith Tudor Hart. Between photography and espionage

Details regarding the exhibition’s opening are currently being finalised. The full programme and all further details will be published and updated shortly.

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For the first time in Italy, Ergo Expo presents a major retrospective dedicated to the Anglo-Austrian photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (1908 Vienna – 1973 Brighton).

Housed in the Palazzo Pepoli, home to the Museum of the History of Bologna, from 24 October 2026 to 28 February 2027 and curated by ONO arte, in collaboration with the FOTOHOF archive in Salzburg – which now houses Tudor-Hart’s entire archive – the exhibition is not only an opportunity to rediscover one of the most brilliant figures in early 20th-century social photography, restoring her to the rightful place she deserves and granting her the prominence and recognition within the world of fine art photography that she never received during her lifetime, but also to delve into the secrets of her second life as an agent for the Soviet Union.

Edith Tudor-Hart, née Suschitzky, was a leading figure in social documentary photography between the 1930s and 1950s. In her work, she actively highlighted social injustices, tackling issues such as poverty, integration and women’s rights, whilst documenting the living conditions of the working class. She photographed life in Vienna’s courtyards, along the Danube and in the Prater; the protests against the rise of Austrian fascism; and – once she had moved to England – the miners, factory workers and fishermen of Wales, the post-war feminist movement and the new institutions of progressive education.

Born into a secular Jewish family in Vienna and a staunch supporter of communism, her life was marked by political persecution and personal hardship. Initially trained as a Montessori nursery school teacher in Vienna and London – where she also practised her profession – in the late 1920s she studied photography and graphic design at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where she developed her objective and socially critical style. In 1933, she was imprisoned for her involvement with the Communist Party and fled the emerging fascist regime of Dollfuß, going into exile in England; she married the British doctor Alexander Tudor Hart at the British Embassy in Vienna so that she could travel to Britain as his wife. In London, she successfully continued her photographic work, publishing numerous photo-essays in left-wing newspapers and magazines, including the *Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung* (AIZ), *Kuckuck* and also the *Picture Post*.

It is believed that Edith Tudor-Hart collaborated with the Soviet secret services and intelligence agencies from her teenage years onwards. However, her activities as an agent remained secret throughout her life: whilst the documents still held by Russia remain inaccessible, the recently declassified British ones confirm that she played a key role in recruiting members of the famous ‘Cambridge Five’ spy ring. Fearing she was being watched and would be exposed, Tudor-Hart destroyed most of her negatives in the 1950s and, due to pressure from the British secret services and for health reasons, brought her career as a photographer to an end. To support herself, she opened a small antiques shop.

For this reason, much of her photographic work that survived destruction remained largely unknown and was rediscovered only decades after her death, which occurred in Brighton in 1973.

The exhibition, comprising over 100 photographs, therefore aims to showcase Tudor Hart’s outstanding photographic work, presenting it in five sections – ranging from social deprivation to the political events of her time, from observations of daily life, to images of workers, and children as key figures in society – before also examining her role as a Soviet agent and the social, cultural and political motivations that drove her to act in secret to carry out a mission she had begun at a young age. The five sections of the exhibition do not follow a chronological order but aim to focus on the recurring themes in Tudor Hart’s body of work.

To enrich the exhibition, there will also be an extensive documentary section showcasing not only the magazines in which her work was published, but also personal documents, private papers and intercepts by the British secret services, retracing the fascinating biography of the agent with the camera.

In collaboration with: Fondazione Bologna Welcome, the Culture Department of the Municipality of Bologna and Fondazione Carisbo
With the support of: Card Cultura
Under the patronage of the Municipality of Bologna, FAF – International Research Centre, and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Milan.
The exhibition is also organised with the support of BCC Felsinea.

Cover image: Edith Tudor-Hart © Suschitzky Estate, courtesy of Fotohof