Carmel Vitullo was always interested in captivating the commonplace. And in the 1960s, she did just that.

Vitullo, who grew up in a small Italian community on Federal Hill, studied painting and photography at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and the New York Institute of Photography. She loved photographer Henri Cartier Brisson’s work and was intrigued with taking photos of everyday life and activities. And so, Oakland Beach fascinated her. The beach was the center for summer activities and events in the 1960s, which Vitullo took full advantage of.

Vitullo’s photographs that have never been printed before are on display at the Warwick Center for the Arts through June 30. The opening reception is tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Warwick Center for the Arts, the former armory, next to City Hall. The photos include snapshots of beach days, a bowling arena, the carousel, and a diner, to name a few. Vitullo’s compositions involved visual patterns and captured everyday life and events. The spontaneous way she approaches her subjects and areas of focus set her work apart from those of others. Her work evokes a wide array of emotions, including humor, interest, and delight, which allow the viewer to connect with the past, nearly 60 years after the photos were taken.

“When I saw these photos, to me, they really perfectly captured the image that I had in mind of Oakland Beach in the 1960s. I found the photos absolutely terrific and really wanted to find a way to print them and show them to the rest of the world beyond small images on contact sheets,” said George Shuster, the organizer of the Oakland Beach show.  “What’s remarkable is that this internationally acclaimed photographer has applied that effort to this neighborhood in Warwick, and more or less, no one knew about it.”

Shuster, who lives in Warwick and played a key role in the formation of the Rocky Point Foundation that lobbied for the state purchase of the former amusement park property, spotted one of Vitullo’s photographs of the beach at the Bert Gallery in Providence about a year ago. He inquired if there were more and Cathy Bert discovered that Vitullo had hundreds of negatives from pictures she’d taken that had never been printed. It was the genesis for a show that has been expanded to include other items with an Oakland Beach connection including a horse from the Oakland Beach Carousel Foundation, quahogger bull rakes and paintings with the help of Save the Bay, the Warwick Historical Society and TD Bank.

Vitullo’s work was initially displayed in “The Family of Man” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1955 in New York City. Two of her photos from the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1957 remain in MOMA’s permanent collection and a permanent exhibit of “The Family of Man” in Luxembourg. However, Vitullo’s photos of the historic Oakland Beach are perhaps the most popular due to their simplicity and depiction of everyday life in the 1960s.

Oakland Beach reached its heyday in the 1930s when it boasted boat docks, a bathing beach, hotel, restaurants, a Providence rail service, and a Ferris wheel. Other notable characteristics of Oakland Beach were its movie theater, bowling alley, skating rink and carousel.

Shuster said, “One of the things that fascinated me about Oakland Beach was the layers of history that it has. It’s summer colony with an amusement park, the tip of the peninsula to a place that had been hit by depression and hurricanes, but all through that had retained a vibrant character.”

Vitullo, aged 94, lives in Warwick with her twin sister and an everlasting passion for photography.

The Warwick Center for the Arts is open Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday, 1 to 6 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. The center will also be open the evening of June 15 when food trucks visit City Hall. The show is free.