From 17 March to 16 July 2023, the Sale Chiablese of the Royal Museums of Turin will host the largest anthology ever organized in Italy by Ruth Orkin (Boston 1921 - New York 1985), American photojournalist, photographer and director, one of the most relevant of the 20th century.

The exhibition entitled RUTH ORKIN. A new discovery, curated by Anne Morin, organized by diChroma, produced by Società Ares srl with the Royal Museums and the patronage of the Municipality of Turin, brings together 156 photographs, most of which are original, which retrace the trajectory of one of the most of photography of the twentieth century, in particular between 1939 and the end of the sixties, through some capital works such as VE-Day, Jimmy tells a story, American Girl in Italy, one of his most iconic shots in the history of photography, the portraits of personalities such as Robert Capa, Albert Einstein, Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, Lauren Bacall, Vittorio De Sica, Woody Allen and others.

“As a curator and historian of photography – says Anne Morin -, it has always seemed to me that Ruth Orkin's work has not received the recognition it deserves. Yet if this photographer has a fascinating destiny, so is her work. This exhibition aims to revisit the work of the woman who wanted to be a director and who, due to circumstances, being a male cinematic world, had to find her place elsewhere. He has not given up on his dream, but has approached it in a different way, creating a singular, extremely rich and new language through photography. Ruth Orkin's photographic work is about images, cinema, stories and ultimately life. This exhibition is the definitive statement of the work of this young woman who has reinvented another kind of photography.”

The exhibition approaches his work from a completely new perspective, at the intersection of the still image and the moving image. Fascinated by cinema, Ruth Orkin in fact dreamed of becoming a director, thanks also to the influence of her mother, Mary Ruby, a silent film actress, who led her to attend the scenes of Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s. In the first half of the last century, however, the road to pursuing this career was littered with obstacles for a woman. Ruth Orkin therefore had to give up her dream of becoming a filmmaker or at least had to reinvent and transform it; thanks to the gift of his first camera, a 39 cent Univex, he approached photography, but without ever neglecting the charm of cinema.