HUNGARY: Unique exhibition of world famous Hungarian photographers opened in Budapest

Record ID: 773466

  • Title: HUNGARY: Unique exhibition of world famous Hungarian photographers opened in Budapest
  • Date: 7th December 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(Hungarian) CO-ORGANISER AND DIRECTOR OF EDGE COMMUNICATIONS, ATTILA LEDENYI, SAYING: "Some of these pictures are world famous photos, but some of them have never been exhibited before. Therefore we think that in exhibition places such as Paris or New York where the audience know part of the works, we will be able to present such rarities which show what these artists did before they created their world famous photography."
  • Embargoed: 22nd December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVAD5VCKJSX01RIUDIUNJP1CROZ5
  • Story Text: An exhibit celebrating five of Hungary's most renown photographers has opened at the Ernst museum in Budapest. Pictures by world famous photographers Brassai, Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkacsi illustrate world history and tell stories of everyday life, war and celebrities.
    It is the first time the works of the five photographers have been exhibited together and many visitors have already found their way to the Ernst museum.
    Martin Munkacsi's early work is fairly unknown in Hungary and is proving to be of great interest to the audience. In his time Munkacsi revolutionised fashion photography with his images of the 'new woman', preferring to capture the natural movements of models rather than to photograph stationary, artificial poses.
    Munkacsi (1898-1963) was born in the Transylvanian region of Romania, but his career took him to Budapest, Berlin and New York. He was one of the best paid photographers of his time, but despite his commercial success, few of his photographs are widely known. It is only now that he is being recognised as a major artist who greatly influenced photojournalism and fashion photography.
    One of his most influential photos is "African Boys at Lake Tanganyika''. The father of modern photojournalism Henri Cartier-Bresson once said it had an enormous impact on him with its intensity and spontaneity.
    Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895 - 1946) was a leader of the Bauhaus movement. A painter, photographer and professor of the Bauhaus school, Moholy-Nagy believed in the integration of industry and technology into art. He was born in southeast Hungary, and saw the camera as the ideal medium for articulating a new vision of life.
    He coined the term 'the New Vision', for his belief that photography could create a whole new way of seeing the outside world that the human eye could not.
    "The concept of the exhibition is definitely unique in the sense that it is chronological and the whole concept is built on emphasizing the connection points among the artists. These artists, of whom we would never think had any connection with each other, did influence each other's lives and art in some form and to some degree. This is one of the really exciting points here," Attila Ledenyi, co-organiser and director of Edge Communications said.
    Perhaps one of the best-known Hungarian photographers was Andre Kertesz (1894-1985), who captured simple and compelling images of intimate and commonplace moments in modern life. He left Budapest for Paris in 1925, having a great influence on French photography. After being widely praised in Paris, he received a cold reception in New York where he lived from 1936-1985. He finally received recognition in the US in 1965 when he became an honorary member of the American Society for Magazine Photographers.
    Brassai was born as Gyula Halasz in Brasso, Romania, which was then part of Hungary. He became known for his photographs, sculptures, drawings and engravings in Paris in the mid 1920s. He captured the essence of the city in his pictures and received the nickname, 'the eye of Paris' in an essay by his friend Henry Miller. Apart from photos of the seedier side of Paris, he shot scenes from the city's high society life, photographing his famous friends, Dali and Picasso.
    "Black and white photography is a black and white history and when I see these pictures I can see how people lived before I was born. And they're still very good because the conception, the composition, the writing, perfect. And you never forget it, those are not digital cameras, they didn't take them out from their pocket and just shoot, hoping that if they take a hundred pictures, they'll get lucky with one," photographer Martin Szipal, visiting the exhibit, said.
    Another big name at the exhibit is Robert Capa (1913-1954). He was born in Budapest as Andre Friedmann, and became one of the most famous of all war photographers. Probably his best-known and most controversial work is of a fighter in the Spanish Civil War being shot by a bullet.
    The Second World War took Capa to various parts of Europe on photography assignments. His most famous work came on June 6 D-Day when he swam ashore taking photos. He took 108 pictures in the first couple of hours of the invasion. However, a staff member at Life made a mistake in the darkroom and melted the negatives. Only eleven frames were recovered.
    Capa died a premature death on the battlefield in Southeast Asia when he stepped on a landmine on assignment for Life magazine in 1954.
    The exhibit in Budapest will be open until January 17th 2007. Later, organisers plan to take it to Paris and New York.
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