Márton Munkácsi or Martin Munkácsi (1896-1963), who was born in Kolozsvár, was the greatest pioneer of modern photographic journalism and the best-paid star photographer of his age. At the main stages of his success he worked for significant magazines in Budapest, Berlin or New York like Pesti Napló, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, Harper’s Bazaar, Life and Ladies’ Home Journal. He took photographs of athletes and dancers, he led fashion photographers out of the studio, and he activated the static medium of photography with his unique perspective.

At the peak of his career in the 1930’s and 1940’s he prepared sweeping photographic reports, and his brilliant picture essays did not only impress the great personalities of photographic art, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avendon, but he also had a large impact on the image created about the modern, successful, independent and dynamic city woman of Western Europe through his spectacular fashion series.

His series How does America live?, which was prepared between 1940 and 1946, is a deep picture report series consisting of 65 reports, which present the everyday lives of the most different layers of American society. Other peaks of his artist career were the extraordinary portaits of Hollywood stars (Katherine Hepburn, Leslie Howard, Fred Astaire and Marlene Dietrich). Due the transformation of the medium and the changing taste of the period, however, his photography was slowly forgotten, and the star photographer, who was world-famous once, died as a poor and forgotten man.

Large-scale retrospective exhibitions were organised in 2005, in the exhibition hall Internationales Haus der Photographie – Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, then in 2006, in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin; these demanded that the Hungarian artist be restored to his proper place in photographic history. The Martin Munkácsi exhibition at the Ludwig Museum is based on this material, supplemented by rare pieces from private collections.

The exhibition is the result of the cooperation with the F.C. Gundlach Collection.

More information:
Ludwig Museum
Contemporary Art Museum
IX. Komor Marcell u. 1. 1.
(Palace of Arts)
Tel.: 36-1-555-3444"

Source: Ludwig Museum