Munkácsi's revolution

::::: an uncredited artist

In short the story goes like this: Munkacsi's style, trademarks and "tricks" were quickly adopted by whole new generations of photographers with whom the pioneer artist couldn't (wouldn't) compete after a point. He should have renewed, should have shifted to color photography, maybe to medium format too - but he didn't: he kept to his bulky large format camera and B&W photography that he was master of, kept to his direct style and tried to hold on to his fame too. At last he offended the Bazaar refusing to take pictures of a republican politician saying he could no ways make a republican look good. And that was it. A quick end to a long and laconic downhill trip, a human tragedy - or the fate of a big time bold pioneer. 

Today however we can see the very same details and the very same person in a totally different light ... Since his life and carrier took place at the dawn of fashion- and magazine photography, looking back now from the other end of time provides quite a historical distance and so we can really start to see the story differently. Even his early fame and unprecedented success at the Bazaar appears differently today ...

::::: being the best paid photographer of the world

Martin Munkacsi was indeed a pioneer in the truest sense. The Harper's Bazaar that we know started out in 1933 with Carmel Snow and Munkacsi. By that time Munkacsi had already worked in Berlin for 4-5 years for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung *, a weekly magazine with a circulation of 2 million copies! It was not only the number of copies but also the concept: it was already a pictorial, an illustrated magazine that had emphasis on photojournalism, where stories were told by photos primarily. Before Berlin, Munkacsi had worked for Hungarian papers in Budapest since around 1923 where he also became famous for his revolutionary style. In Berlin he worked for Illustrirte Zeitung practically alongside with the ingenious Dr. Erich Salomon who was the first who called himself a 'Bildjournalist'. Dr. Salomon actually started his tragically short photographer career right there and then.

So when Carmel Snow met him, when he had his famous opening photo-shoot, the kick-off of fashion photography with Lucile Brokaw (1933) he was already "the" Martin Munkacsi, and already had his style which had proved to be revolutionary in two different European countries at two different stages of his career already. Working in Berlin also made him be in the first wave of immigrant Jewish artists who fled from nazi occupied Europe, and as the new Harper's Bazaar was the first to inherit the artistic torch from Europe they inherited Munkacsi too. Munkacsi was in the first wave and as he moved to New York the cultural epicenter of the world, too, had moved along  from Berlin (and Paris) to New York.

 

When he got the contract with Snow's Bazaar he became the best paid photographer of the world - and consequently Harper's Bazaar became the magazine that employed the best paid photographer of the world. Quickly he was no longer just a pioneer, he was a star too. A virtuoso bohemian from Europe.

Looking back we wish he hadn't become that, "the best paid photographer of the world". We wish. As we know he kept thinking of himself pretty much in this aspect as of the "'world's greatest photographer, author, storyteller, girlwatcher, and art expert" (Susan Morgan, Károly Kincses / Joan Munkacsi). It's easy to see how this mentality could hurt his career, in terms of building up good relationship with a wide range of artists, editors and important people of the field. But this is not all to that.

Being "the best paid photographer" is totally an unlucky situation. "Best paid" implies that there might be a "best" too which would make "best paid" sound like "overpaid". They say that by around 1940 commercial photography met art-photography and that this was a great opening for photographers. But what about the "best paid" photographer? Would he get plenty of offers? Being the "best paid" might have been quite an obstacle to making his way ahead at that great opening. Looking back now he seems to be the one who just helped photography to this great new stage - but couldn't have his share of it, not even a reward, he was left uncredited.

Today, if we could send an ordinary art-manager back to his time s/he would probably suggest him that instead of getting world famously 'best paid' he should rather focus on achieving a reputation as an artist - getting in the MoMA like WEEGEE Arthur Fellig did. Munkacsi actually got there once in his lifetime in 1937 - for "Photography 1839-1937" - an exhibition of 800 items organized by Beaumont Newhall, open from March to April.

He had quite a great work behind him already - "behind him", that's the key. As a Hungarian researcher and author (of the book Munkacsi & Munkacsi) Károly Kincses explains he had to escape from Germany and so he didn't have "vintage prints" of his photos (print made from the negative within 1 year's time) - which was the preferable form of photographs for both art marketeers and museum curators. It's still hard to believe that his extraordinary series of Hitler and the nazis marching in the parliament on March 21 1933 couldn't make it to the MoMA. If they had ... - Munkacsi's career would surely have worked out in a totally different way.


Without a significant artistic reputation Munkacsi lived totally vulnerable rushing towards a sad end. He was just a star, a comet dashing thru the night sky, just a novelty - and all his contribution to photography became just to be there for free for everyone to take and learn. All his tricks and inventions, all his style quickly became common place in magazine photography (you would see jumping portraits all over the pages of magazines - even in the 2000's when you watch tv and see a Hungarian fashion-mag editor in chief, who's also a photographer she'd still be taking jumping shots, also, there's a photographer (Philippe Halsman) who even "invented" "jumping portraits" as his own trademark in 1951 - when Munkacsi could really use some appreciation. Just like the Rubik Cube, Munkacsi's art quickly became everybody's. So, without the insurance of a significant artistic reputation, being a photographer celebrity, building a house on Long Island (1939), having a shiny lifestyle that includes regular horse rides in Central Park with his first daughter Alice - he was already right on the way to a cold an unfair end.

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* "Ilustrirte Zeitung" - is obviously an incorrect way of spelling, the correct version would be "Illustrierte" - but since the magazine had this name spelled like this we'll use this incorrect spelling throughout this article

::::: the pioneer and the "newcomers"

History is always complex and hard to really grasp. When we think of Munkacsi's 'seminal' work at Bazaar we might practically see a whole era on the time line and an another one after that with the "new photographers". In reality it's not that clearcut. The first easily discernible era however could be from 1933 till 1936. An era that has Munkacsi's photo shoot with Lucille Brokaw for the Bazaar as its opening act, the "Demoiselles d'Avignon" in fashion photography. Munkacsi's revolution has arrived. A great moment - that due to the nature of fashion would be quickly followed by the next one.

If we would like to have a picture of the next generation, of the 'newcomers' it is definitely interesting to look at Louise Dahl-Wolfe, who's career was overlapping Munkacsi's at the Bazaar from 1936. Louise Dahl-Wolfe, a talented young woman with extensive background of art studies (6 years in San Francisco Art Institute) was already a photographer by 1933 when one of her photos appeared in Vanity Fair (this was still the "pre-revolution" Vanity Fair, before Carmel Snow's Bazaar with Munkacsi had reshaped fashion photography - and also this photograph was a wonderful socio-portrait taken in Tenesse). Dahl-Wolfe was only one year younger than Munkacsi and practically became famous of the same virtues as Munkacsi - 'a pioneer of fashion photography who went outdoors and used natural light - etc :)'. Richard Avedon regards both of them as his masters.

Dahl-Wolfe shot nude and swimsuit in the Mojave desert (1948) just like André De Dienes did with Norma Jane a few years earlier. Dahl-Wolfe got to Museum of Modern Art New York in 1937 just like Martin Munkacsi did - except that this was a different exhibition, organized by Edward Steichen (!) the big man, the great curator at MoMA NY who was actually the first to notice Munkacsi when he first arrived in the States. Almost needless to say non of these pictures showing at MoMA were fashion-photographs, Dahl-Wolfe's were of those portraits that she took in Tenessee back in 1932.

What's most interesting in Dahl-Wolfe compared to Munkacsi is however the fact that when in 1933 she was offered to join Vanity Fair's staff photographers and shoot celebrities at Conde Nast studios she said no, she said she preferred her own studio. So, instead of one big jump she took the stairs, she began to work as a freelance advertising- and fashion photographer in her own studio which obviously allowed her a much wider space to unfold her art.


Either ways, Louise Dahl-Wolfe worked for Bazaar as staff photographer from 1936 till 1958, made it to the cover 86 times and had thousands of pictures published 600 of which was color. She worked as long as she could physically hold her cameras. Looking at Dahl-Wolfe's photographs one will see what Martin Munkacsi was not, what he did not become: a creator of sophisticated beauty. 



Munkacsi didn't actually create beauty but rather captured it. Didn't have those elaborated battle-plans (that could be sold to dry-minded marketing people) on how to achieve beautiful pictures but rather just went at it directly. For him beauty was just there and his challenge was to capture it not to create it. Fashion photography after him took the safe way of a yellow brick road with the plan- and concept-based beauty creation with sophisticated stylists and cutting edge hair & make-up departments which means that by the time planning and preparation has finished the photographer and her/his camera will be facing a piece of fiction, just like shooting a movie. The beauty of the picture now comes from the beauty that is pre-created for the camera, so the picture is actually made before it's taken whereas with Munkacsi the beauty comes from the beauty of the moment when the photographer caught sight of the beauty that is experiencing the beauty (that was actually there as a real part of life and not only as a tricky reminder or imitation of it - like models acting as if they were real girls at real terraces drinking real frappuccino).

Needless to say, the beauty-creation based image factory just like Stanislavsky method for cinema and theater - wasn't the best possible direction to go.

Looking at Dahl-Wolfe's pictures compared to Munkacsi's one will also realize that his greatest and most famous pictures date back to before like 1936 but most definitely before 1940. Also, Munkacsi's oeuvre doesn't seem to have well distinguishable periods in style or technique, he's like a prodigy doing "the same thing" ever since he started photography. And indeed he must have been a prodigy since he could be 'new' in Budapest, then 'new' in Berlin and 'new' in the US too - carrying the same torch of his revolution.

When we think of photographers "coming after" Munkacsi, we have to realize that several of them were already there during and before Munkacsi it's just that their active and art-historically appreciated period reaches beyond Munkacsi's - beyond the golden progressive 1930's.

Even Toni Frissell who born in 1907 was like 11 years younger then Munkacsi was already a professional fashion photographer by 1931. She worked for Vogue since 1931 - owing to Conde Montrose Nast personally (quite an acquaintance). She was a new generation even in terms of using Rolleiflex cameras and in an 1935 portrait we can see her with a Zeiss Contax I in her hand. She worked for Sports Illustrated (basically Munkacsi's territory) and in 1939-40 she showed her talent in color photography too (see that wonderful picture in a 1940 Vogue - link).

George Hoyningen-Huene was already there too before Munkacsi's revolution hit the Bazaar and America. He was actually famous of working in huge studios using huge sets of lights to achieve his fine results. Static, studio photography - both of which exactly what Munkacsi was not, what Munkacsi's revolution went against.

Hoyningen-Huene was however untouched by Munkacsi's revolution owing to the fact that he had his own one - with Horst P. Horst. After the silent-film-like studio-portraits Hoyningen-Huene took a picture of Horst. It's outdoors, sunlit - the master of studio lighting reached the breakingpoint. It's sexi too - and it's a man's body - Horst's in 1931. They fell in love and their revolution resulted in Horst's becoming a photographer too.

Hoyningen-Huene however kept to studio photography and Munkacsi's revolution weltering outside those walls wouldn't really reach him. What's more, when the next era hit in with the war and revolutionary times were over Hoyningen-Huene's static, studio-lit style sort of took over and came back. In a 1940 issue of Bazaar there's a beautiful series by Hoyningen-Huene, it's beautiful, sophisticated, taken in a studio - and color. Munkacsi's Bazaar changed into Hoyningen-Huene's, at this time he's more modern than our revolutioner.

It's sad to see how Munkacsi's revolution just became bygone.

These pictures are really beautiful, also quite familiar to our eyes, but if we look at his picture "6 Bathers" it'll right away remind us of Munkacsi's "Lovely autumn: the last warm rays of sunshine" and we'll be taken aback by the difference - it's huge.

* * * *

(could have been a studio shot too, but we have reasons to suppose it's outside: an earlier picture with the couple "on the beach" wearing bathing suits was taken on the roof the studio so even though the sea is not real it's already outside - BTW the male model is Horst)

* * * *

::::: Munkacsi's revolution : addiction & penetration to reality

Speaking of "Lovely autumn: the last warm rays of sunshine" Munkacsi's is so alive, so full of life, that this picture is practically not just a photo for a magazine but a picture of a real moment, in a real afternoon - even the title tells us about that. He didn't create something sophisticated that 'looks' beautiful (especially because you can't have it), something that'd remind you of a real moment of a real experience, but instead he made a beautiful moment happen - and captured it while happening. Instead of 'imitation of life' - it was life actually.

A magazine is a prospectus showing pictures of great possible moments of life, showing how extremely beautiful life could be for the lucky ones. When there's a cultural recession viewers will prefer their images more misty or fictitious, more like off-reality whereas during an optimistic period they'll be attracted to reality, they'll like everydays to be reflected, to be captured in the images.

When Munkacsi was called to America the depression was (sort of?) over and a bright, optimistic era has started out (if we can say that). Munkacsi was just the perfect choice, he was a specialist, he was cutting edge in 'penetrating reality', capturing, depicting life as it had never been seen before.

* * *

The expression "media penetration" actually covers two phenomenons, one being media's reaching wider layers of society (i.e. media penetrates society). The other one is media's gaining a closer access to 'reality', providing a higher 'resolution' 'coverage' by improvement (or spreading or getting more mobile or inexpensive) of the available imaging technologies.

Penetration of this kind was for example when digital cameras suddenly started to allow the speed of ISO 1600 for photographers, or when(ever) video- or photo cameras became more portable, being able to penetrate more into reality - just think of Robert Capa on D-Day how could he possible make it having to use a Graflex instead of his 35 mm and 6x6 cameras?

* * *



As for 'penetrating reality' you can distinguish 3 basic elements: talent (great eye, fast mind), technical improvement (fast lenses, more portable equipment, flashlight, WSE) and a new way of thinking (attraction to reality). But instead of becoming really dogmatic we can focus on reality's great pioneer penetrators.

Munkacsi, besides being an extremely talented artist was able to use his bulky large format cameras as though it'd been just a lightweight handy thing - this and his manners gave him the key and free access to reality.

There was Arthur Fellig WEEGEE who entered previously unseen dimensions of reality, he'd regularly show up "unexpectedly" at crime scenes, as if just following a calling, to fire his flash-armoured Graflex. WEEGEE was as regular and welcome (police even let him use their radio frequency) to crime scenes as Munkacsi to sports-, or Dr. Salomon to political, diplomatic events.

Dr. Salomon first tried the standard news camera at the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung *, it was the 13x18 cm Contessa Nettel (as you read it in humble and wonderful Peter Hunter's article on Dr. Salomon, his father). He fell in love with photography but he needed something more (more access to reality), which was there for him profoundly in the form of the fantastic Ermanox, the small, handy camera (very small size - but large format) with its f 1.8 super-fast lens that'd allow the dear Doctor taking pictures at 'available light' even unnoticed - which he became famous for.

As we speak of great penetrators, we definitely have to mention Roman Vishniac who started his desperate requiem-project in 1935, saving the memory of Central- and Eastern European Jews. It was not really a historian's job. First of all he was taking pictures of his brothers and sisters when it was planned that they'd be soon exterminated. If art and photography has to do with 'preserving memory' - his photographs and his project is just huge ... like the Schindler's list in photography. It was really not a historian's project, not to mention that he had to use hidden camera (because the orthodox Jews wouldn't let him take pictures of them), got arrested for 11 times, and also had to 'penetrate' deep into the more and more dangerous zones. In 1938 he sneaked into a deportation camp in Germany. He took pictures in a dimension of reality that most of the world was unaware of.

Penetration to reality was the new way. By this time Cinema Verité was already born, and as movies began to have sound (in Hollywod they started to talk :)) Cinema Verité founder Dziga Vertov took the huge sound equipment to do field recording for his new documentary - Entuziazm. The whole world was changing. Reality (a hunger for pictorial details of life) became an obsession - it was the birth of image-based mass media. Munkacsi was right the man right there, having all the style and know-how that was to become fashionable, having all the experience and talent and originality that made him perfect for playing the role of the # 1 magazine photographer of western civilization.

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* "Ilustrirte Zeitung" - is obviously an incorrect way of spelling, the correct version would be "Illustrierte" - but since the magazine had this name spelled like this we'll use this incorrect spelling throughout this article

::::: Potsdam 1933

Before having to escape from Europe Munkacsi did an incredible final coverage in Potsdam, on the 21th of March, 1933. The nazi army parading in front of the parliament while Hitler is marching in. It's a breathtaking series. Being Jewish his degree of penetration into a scene was already extreme, an so was his clearness and sobriety of an outsider by which he did the coverage from inside. He was no bystander there, he was perfectly aware of what was going on and how he should capture it as if focusing on the jaws of a shark or on the tensing muscles of a mantis that is ready to jump. He also had to work very fast for sure. We've got Hitler as he's pushing forward, we've got the marching of the faceless, boot clapping masses of nazi soldiers, we've got all the flags, all the wavings, the strict geometry, the metal helmets, the weapons, saluting and marching soldiers. We've got the complete coverage - for good, for the eternity. 

Munkacsi was not hypnotized by the frightful scene, he wouldn't get lost in the details - he did his coverage as a cool professional aware of the shortness of time and of the significance of the moment. He changed his location plenty of times. Even took pictures of the press pack - with the vets in front of them foreshowing the outcome of what was just cooking there.
 

The picture of Hitler is also peculiar because it tells that Munkacsi was waiting till the utmost. Waited for something to budge, for something subtle that'd make it a Munkacsi picture, something accidental that would reveal an other layer, that would allow an even more penetrating look for his camera. It must have been a sort of a who blinks first game. Munkacsi was following Hitler's hasty approaching and with every other fragment of a seconds of wait he was jeopardizing that someone would just step in and cover the sight out and he'd just miss it all. He could have been content with less, could have taken the safe one of Hitler and his company but he was waiting for a little something extra. 



He must have been enjoying that he had it under control that he could keep an eye on history's most demolishing dictator from so close. He probably just had the target clear for like one or two seconds, but obviously he didn't slapdash it. Waited till exactly as long as it was necessary - for a great Munkacsi picture. And finally what he wanted just happened, a figure next to Hitler makes a move with his hand like a bodyguard defending Hitler from the cameras (?). Behind them two of the figures are staring at Munkacsi. Perfect. Munkacsi's got them. Didn't bump off from the toughly organized event, didn't fail, but once again he succeeded to capture what he wanted to appear on the pages of the magazine. The intellect overcame the barbarian aggressors - a virtuoso coverage of history's most petrifying demonstration.

::::: Munkacsi's festive style

Munkacsi's style didn't only lay in his brilliant eyes and cutting edge technique. It was his 'aspect' that made all that difference. It was his approach to reality - that he was addicted to.

Apparently he was getting the most out of the moments and this didn't restrict to just waiting for the right moment. Munkacsi was a kind of a photographer would actually interfere with the scene that he was capturing, wanting or suggesting, hypnotizing the whole situation, gaining the fullest possible control over the happenings - and in the end we'll have the inexplicable hunch in the back of our minds that he wanted to see exactly what he finally captured (this is so intensely typical for Munkacsi :)).

Munkacsi's style comes from his vigorous, direct attitude. He was a virtuoso bohemian. Capturing "sexiness" and capturing a goal or a great historical moment is just about the same thing: capturing life in its full bloom, in its total beauty (or reality). Munkacsi was a specialist - being able to capture all those details of reality that made his pictures sensationally live. It was not only his skills, but also his manner.



He invented 'sexy' - which obviously just came from his style and person. Why be shy or pretentious? When there's a beautiful woman in front of your camera it's fun, it's playing, it's making love visually. Girls in his pictures radiate, they're so vibrant but also they seem to be a little bit embarrassed too, like blushing. Look at Lucile Brokaw or Leni Riefenstahl, they're softly blushing as if feeling Munkacsi's look over their skin, as if taking a warm compliment - and there's more, a closeup of Riefenstahl for example with her sweating skin of her beautiful face is like making love on the top of the world - Munkacsi obviously felt for her ...

(this idea is supported by the fact that in 1936 he got another of his Leni Riefenstahl photos (from 1931) on Time Magazine's cover which seems to indicate that he hadn't forget her and that he was proud that he had taken pictures of her - and of course she was already the nazi celebrity woman too working for Hitler so this front page added to Munkacsi's fame nationwide).



He was a big time photographer, he was already that back in Hungary where they regarded him as an American style photographer before he ever crossed the Atlantic, and his presence was so much noticed at soccer games that in today's terms he just represented mass media. This role was part of his person, part of his phenomenon and when he took a picture it was taken by a big time photographer. Subjects of his pictures were invited for a great trip, offered the chance to be meet by millions of nice people who'd happily celebrate them. They were offered to say hello to the world! Just like he'd been a big time filmmaker. This direct and festive style made the rite and the moment of exposure so intense, and gave his pictures revolutionary quality.



He didn't create pictures that'd remind people of reality - he would capture reality. Directly. Right the thing. Didn't tell his models how to "pose" - i.e. how to imitate something. He was not interested in imitations of life - he was just too much in love with reality and addicted to the real beauty of it. So his revolution was not only a great jump improving the quality of capturing, but also a great turn in philosophy, in the aspect of photography. With the Lucile Brokaw shoot he as much as declared studio photography (and making a model pose for a camera in studio lighting as if she was enjoying life) past and boring. The 'new objectivity', the 'neue sehen' had made its way to America and made it's first bloom at his Lucile Brokaw photo shoot. While Venus was born out of the foam of the see, fashion photography was born right on the beach - right there, right then.

It's absolutely no surprise that ca. 10 years later André De Dienes took Norma Jane to the beach too and that those pictures were way better than any other Merilyn Monro pictures taken later on. Martin Munkacsi didn't only made a huge step towards reality, didn't just get one step closer, but changed the whole approach and put 'getting close' and 'reality' in focus.

He was great in capturing reality - be it sexiness, a 'decisive moment' in sport or drama. Obviously his mentality had a huge part of a news cameraman, the point in which is being or getting inside of what's happening, moving and breathing with it, catching on the logic of it, and thinking along (that is in soccer following the way of the ball so intensely that he'd be able to see the goal while it's just developing). This would let him release the shutter right on the climax of the moment. He had to be really fast analyzing the scene, picking up the vibe and figuring where the situation was headed.

Today's photographers shoot first and think later, they can take like 10 pictures in a second and after 90 minutes they'll have like another 90 selecting the good ones from the 1000 pictures. Munkacsi had this selecting too but before pushing the expo button, and so his shots were real decisions and he didn't just take them to find out only later what he had. Today incredible cameras and incredible lenses offer photographers fantastic access to reality. Almost anybody can learn how to take great pictures at a football game - in like 30 minutes. To take good pictures today almost merely takes a good equipment, and once you have it good pictures are almost granted. Munkacsi did have to do everything manually, including changing the plate after each shot, setting the focus, the aperture, and so on. His good pictures were not granted by the camera's manufacturer but by his talent and masterly skills.

Great skills or powerful cameras however only grant 'good' pictures - 'great' photography needs talent, it always did. Munkacsi wasn't just a lucky guy, a child prodigy with extremely developed skills, no, he wasn't just a good picture taking machine - however industry sort of took him like that. His real virtues, his soulfully vivid approach, his playful and seductive style, his intense way of looking at phenomenons of life which made his pictures wonderful - just remained unnoticed.

The real message of a medium is the medium itself, and indeed, when the Bazaar advertised themselves having the world's best paid photographer it wasn't about Munkacsi but about the Bazaar. When a new photo appeared by Munkacsi - it wasn't about Munkacsi either. That's the way industry works. They want your tricks, your power you ave over the readers - not your art exactly. Munkacsi could provide photos that normally would have been possible only years later - and industry was buying.

::::: Having Fun at Breakfast

When we look back, art will always appear as serious. Serious, monumental, something that was hard to achieve, like the metaphoric bell in Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. The truth is that the more we alienate a piece of art and the times around it the greater spectacle it'll be for the public of today. This will also mean that the more we can dig down to the birth of a piece of art the more likely we'll find it somewhat common (unless it involves a great deal of suffering, like Kierkegaard's brazen bull which Laszlo feLugossy contemporary painter and performance artist keeps referring to as to the anchor point of art and human nature). We who's present is the posterity to all arts that ever took place, we really like to think that art is a show that someone was once working really hard on just to entertain us now, just to reach to the future, just to survive in his or her work - for us. For we, people of holy present really represent a lot to those poor souls. Just think of poor Michelangelo working on his fresco in all that cold - in order to get it for us, fine people of his future, or think of poor Van Gogh who even lost a lobe while fighting with all those demons that now add a magnificent characteristic to the flavor of his art.



Yes, we have this fixation that art is our oil and that Dinos and vegetation once died for - in order to now provide us with this wonderful fluid. We have this fixation that we are the endusers - to all.

In such context it may be even more obvious why Having Fun at Breakfast is such an astonishing photo (with Tibor von Halmay and Vera Mahlke - Berlin 1931 or 1933 (?)) It's a rebel. It's not against something big or ugly though (like bad taste of middle class or conformism or the disinterest of society) it's just against seriousness, and only indirectly - simply ignoring the rule that one is supposed to be serious.



When we look at a photograph owing to our enduser state of mind we'll somehow imagine the moment of exposure as a sort of a serious one, or at least with some fair amount of solemnity. Having Fun at Breakfast is such a direct picture and it's totally not like this, no solemnity. It's a shock, out of the blue you'll be provoked to smile. A coffee had really perked him up, really thrown him up to his greatest surprise! He's just taking an other bite of his cake before taking the next sip of coffee and he'll find himself thrown up to the air, to the wall. It's so elementarily humorous like watching someone fall on his bottom in a silent movie. He looks like he had just been sitting - and then thrown. like popped. You just can't help smiling.



Till up to 2007 we only knew this one and another from this photo shoot - the one with white backdrop from the F. C. Gundlach collection, and we knew this as "The Dance Team of Tibor von Halmay and Eva Sylt, ca. 1931" (while Having Fun at Breakfast had Tibor von Halmay and Vera Mahlke). So these two pictures appeared somewhat separate - also because there were other known Munkacsi pictures having dancers, dance-duos jumping (like one with Rosi Barsony from ca. 1932 and another one called dance in Berlin ca. 1933).

Still it was obvious that Eva Sylt = Vera Mahlke (or they are twins happened to be in Munkacsi's studio at the same photo shoot, or Vera Mahlke is the name that Eva Sylt later took). It's important to see these tow pictures together cause like this we can see two sides of the same photoshoot, one being the creation of a professional portrait of a dance duo with plain white background, and one being a really funny editorial photograph - created with extreme professionalism (which by the way includes that he even left a light stand in the frame which indicates that by the time of exposure he was already aware how he'd crop the image).

Today since the 2007 big eBay find it's multiple times confirmed that it's the same photo shoot where originally they were doing those professional portraits (see pictures at ICP.org here). Having Fun at Breakfast is a side-product of this photo shoot which really tells us a lot about Munkacsi.


Just imagine having a morning photo shoot with lots of laughters and lots of jumpings. The dancers must have given quite a show for the photographer and his assistant (see here: link ). Later on in a coffee-break they are just waiting and talking - joking keeping up to the high fun-level of the whole morning (one will imagine this photo shoot take place in the morning, like 9 o' clock, which must have been a little early for the dancers). Then someone makes a joke on the coffee hopefully throwing them up (probably Tibor) - and they laugh. And possibly there came the moment that shows a little bit of how Munkacsi thought and worked. He must have liked the joke and probably went for it. So far the dancers had been the main attraction of the morning, and Munkacsi was serving their art professionally, but now he came up with the idea to actually take that picture that they were having so much fun joking about. Now the spotlight moves over on Munkacsi - the magician. Before the dancers finish up with their espresso Munkacsi and his assistant redirect the main light which is turned off in the break-time (and so this change is not that noticeable at that moment yet). Then after the coffee the master of photography turns on the lights and seconds later they're already doing the first shot. They'll do a few more too - because Munkacsi doesn't want to cut off of the girl while following Tibor's flight thru the now hand-held camera trying to have Tibor in the picture who's jumping really high after the coffee. The picture would be done before they could notice, and after they'd feel as if just after a nice series of laughter - except that now there'd be a few exposed plates - one of which would probably have some remarkable picture of this fun.



This is not only a playful act from a professional, but also a moment typical of Martin Munkacsi, showing how a photo shoot would unfold from the original plans, how he'd improvise and escalate, and how elegantly and swiftly he'd make even just freshly dreamt images come true. A true magician with full his powers. This is where revolution starts. When imagination is unlimited and creativity will be able to keep pace with it. This picture is like a sound recording could be of Mozart's playing the klavier. The playful virtuoso master at "work" - in the middest of playing.

We can also notice the direction in which Munkacsi took the turn while escalating the course of the photo shoot: he was turning away from the plain white backdrop towards a 'real' background, and simplified lighting too, just as if morning sun shone in thru the window - directly. Also the model girl (Eva Sylt / Vera Mahlke), while she was obviously master of making faces and poses now she ended up having a coffee and a cookie and zero poses which is really typical for Munkacsi's 'seductive' style, which could be described like instead of letting the model show whatever s/he wants he'll rather catch them doing something, rather let them, allow them, suggestively seduce them into a situation to do something which he'll catch them at, which he'll capture. This is actually against advertising photography - but "typical" for ingenious photography let it be even advertising photography ...

(thinking of Tom DiCillo's classic photo shoot in The Real Blonde were even an advertising photographer will be seeking and capturing drama or some great moment in which the model could be captured in even the abstract sense of this expression;

or we can think of the ingenious Anton Corbijn's Björk ever so unique and original portrait (not that you couldn't pick any of Corbijn's photographs), or the portrait of Peter Gabriel "captured" - caught on coming out from an adult video store)

When we think of Munkacsi's wonderful "think while you shoot" motto we should actually think of a great artist running his mind and imagination at full speed parallel to reality, parallel to what's just happening and looking at everything from the reality of the future that is when the magazine has come out having the picture of the present photo shoot. We should think of an intense working of a beautiful mind's, a beautiful artist's alert and keen but somewhat undercover openness seeking the way at full throttle to capture the best possible picture of the moment, like an agent in a super-intense searching mode sent back from the future when the magazine have just come out, representing the hungry curiosity of the future reader (viewer) now - at the shooting.

Having Fun at a Morning Photo Shoot - that is turning playful imagination into reality before it could even start loosing its original spontaneity, and cherishing open and sincere state of human mind which even involves childish humor.

Advertising industry only acts as if it was playful, in fact it's quite rigid and expects talent to overcome this rigidity. Martin Munkacsi was a perfect choice: master of photography and master of artistic creativity in a totally bright and unconventional thinking and working style. He was to photography like fresh air. Like brand new beauty, like revolution.

::::: the counter-revolution

It's a commonly accepted interpretation of Munkacsi's career that he was at its top by 1940 when he got the Ladies' Home Journal contract and still worked for the Bazaar too, later he got the heart attack and had to redraw from intense work and by 1946 Ladies' Home Journal dropped him and Bazaar followed them the next year. Looking back from today however we'll get a different picture. What we'll see is that his career was at top by around 1936, after 3 golden years of being a celebrated pioneer in fashion photography.



1936 is when LIFE magazine gets airborne - which is not only the revolution of photojournalism but also that of the mainstream mass-media, and that of conservative lifestyle (the broader the scope the more necessarily conservative anyways). LIFE was a mainstream mass-medium for the middle class - and a revolutionary one with its huge success and spectacular 'penetration' - starting from 380 000 copies and reaching over a million readers in like 4 months. LIFE's birth and the world's being headed to war is no mere coincidence. The dark breath of war that Munkacsi had to flee from has arrived to the states. World politics, seriousness, powerful people, household ads - for the middle class. This is totally the opposite of Harper's Bazaar and the world of fashion and beauty and Munkacsi's style- not that Munkacsi's oeuvre hadn't had wonderful chapters of socially sensitive photography too. It's just a different style and approach. For an example Munkacsi took pictures of famous siamese twins for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung *, these pictures show "it can be fun too", "life is life anyways". This aspect could be called superficial too - but it's rather tolerant and liberal. In LIFE magazine these pictures would have been published probably with a dash of drama (see LIFE's article on siamese twins from 1947, calling the twins: "freek children" link).

The point is that when LIFE started world had already started to change, already had taken a turn in a direction which was not Munkacsi-friendly, art- and liberalism-friendly. To see an other example for this shift, look at Munkacsi's Leni Riefenstahl cover on TIME magazine (another Harry Luce press-product) February 17 1936, (see here). It's from the same photo shoot back in 1931 which gave the sexy cover for the French art magazine VU (see here). Just look at the two pictures and you'll definitely see the difference in the editorial aspect. 



This kind of shift was taking place in 1936 already, and it only got more serious by around 1940 when this cold (conservative) change in the mood penetrated fashion too. The big contract with Ladies' Home Journal was also according to the drastic changes, just think of the fact that the big time fashion photographer goes to a middle class conservative household women's magazine. Quite a change in direction. Munkacsi was supposed to regularly take pictures of a wide variety of families (read it in Károly Kincses's book) including poor afro-American families for the huge reportage series "How America Lives" - but eventually it was mainly Midwestern families (short for hardcore conservative).

When he had his first heart attack in 1943 it must have been rather owing to the harsh changes in his life's quality than causing them. He must have sensed this crisis clearly. When he came out of the hospital he moved straight to Waldorf Astoria which can only be taken as he wanted to keep up socially sending out the message that he's doing fine, he's not going down, he's doing totally great, he's working on a book that's all, that's why he's not that active as a photographer. Whatever we think it was, Munkacsi was obviously fighting against this downhill trip. Meanwhile he kept sending money back to Hungary.

We have to notice that when after the war both Ladies' Home Journal and Bazaar had dropped him it was the beginning of the second Red Scare. The shift fro left to right just went on. This change had been on since 1936. What's more it already started in Germany, 1933. He had 3 great years in the new world but the war and the cold era with it finally caught him up. From 1946 he was practically a jobless immigrant Jew in the big US seeking commissions day to day, living and struggling from one day to the next.

After loosing his permanent contracts he would still show up at Bazaar's corridors as a ghost from the past. One can see this as simply a sad story which it really is but also it's really a beautiful story of human dignity, a heroic struggle until the bitter end.

While he was going down hundreds of dozens of photographers were doing what he used to do. Going to Hollywood for instance to take pictures of celebrities. When Munkacsi did that wit Fred Astaire for example it was for him the same exploration kind of photography as when he went to Liberia (*), looking at world's beauties, making friends, getting to know, experiencing. It was obvious for him that he'd take a picture of Astaire as he's jumping since that was his specialty, and not only Astaire's but Munkacsi's too. When Munkacsi took "his Fred Astaire" it was a real photography, a real photographer's real experience on reality. It was a true photograph by a true photographer.

***

as for Liberia ... his fundamental photograph widely known as "Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika" was taken in Liberia too, and should be called (by Henri Cartier-Bresson's words): "Three black children running in to the see" - ca. 1930, published in Das Deutsche Lichtbild, in 1932

(Susan Morgan / The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography)

***




Later on however photographers were sent to Hollywood regularly like troops to the war. Hollywood became a cliché, Hollywood was the boring routine, Hollywood was the big capital lie. Photographers were doing what they were expected (and told) to do: marketing pictures of stars.

Even today we tend to think that taking pictures of stars is a great thing - having taken pictures of stars is a great thing - but it's not, it's totally not (except for like the wonderful Anton Corbijn and others who are like him:)). Taking picture of Fred Astaire (after Martin Munkacsi) is like taking picture of a can, like of a Campbell soup. The same thing, the very same kind of photography. Still you'll read it everywhere that Martin Munkacsi took pictures of like "Katharine Hepburn, Leslie Howard, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Jane Russell, Louis Armstrong" (WIKI). Like this even mattered. You can read these kind of scalp-lists of any photographer. It's almost all the same. Really who cares? Paparazzi take pictures of greatest stars on a daily basis. Really no big deal.

At the same time however Martin Munkacsi was one of the firsts to do star portraits and we have to admit that they are most of them Munkacsi-like excellent photos, starting with the ever so sexy and (still innocent) Leni Riefenstahl series of portrait, including the portrait of Kahlo and Rivera, of course. Munkacsi's star portraits are like Corbijn's: each one of them is different, depending on the personality of the subject. Each of them is a new exploration, and typically for a pioneer quite often a new prototype too for thousands of photos by others to come.

Unlike those hundreds of millions of star portraits Munkacsi's are no factory-standard PR images, but true and wonderful photographs - but this distinction has never really been made. Most people just regards Munkacsi as one of the big time photographers who did lots of great star portraits too, and this is what's sad.

(see a classic LIFE magazine photo by another photographer from 1945 when Munkacsi could really use some acknowledgement)



As Hollywood became more and more demanding photography turned into something more and more conservative. Let's not forget that this was the bad old studio era with all those on screen black people played by white actors painted to black. Stars and fashion very hand in hand anyhow but Hollywood achieved that stars-photographers had to be hand-in-hand with Hollywood studios too. Hollywood and LIFE magazine were opposing forces to Munkacsi's revolution, the conservative style and pretentious seriousness opposing fresh talent and attraction to the beauty of life and reality.

.....................................................................................................

* "Ilustrirte Zeitung" - is obviously an incorrect way of spelling, the correct version would be "Illustrierte" - but since the magazine had this name spelled like this we'll use this incorrect spelling throughout this article

::::: the road to oblivion

Looking back from now we can see that Munkacsi was trapped. He must have been a hurt ex-big timer, a vet from the previous century having to watch all those new artists march by him. He should have changed for color and medium format, also he should have forgotten his former fame. But could this be really possible for anybody? Black and white photography today is still what it used to be at his time: it's fantastic, in photography it's the genuine form of sensing reality. It was deprecated for some time though - and this happened to be when Munkacsi would really have needed some nice commissions. Black and white won, Munkacsi won too - his pictures are just as fresh and amazing as some 70-80 years ago. What Munkacsi lost was just a battle - that happened to be the end of his life.

Fashion in the 1940's restarted with a conservative tone but it became success and today we can't see it but beautiful, just like music after Bach tempered scale. We love Dahl-Wolfe's visual poetry, she was reaching back to her fine-art studies and put sophisticated allusions into her work. Also she went color, and her gentle empathy for women opened a huge field in art for her to play. Her women were no longer just figures & shape - but persons with stories

(look at that wonderful Lauren Bacall picture (link) Wonderful, extremely wonderful. John Rawlings born in 1912 being a whole generation younger than Dahl-Wolfe and Munkacsi had a revolution too. He took color film out from the studio. He used available light too!

History repeats itself - now in color. Rawlings was a genius too, and his pictures are all beautiful, though it's also true that those taken outside are somewhat much more astonishing to our eyes (look at Gene Tierney, March 11, 1946 - here: (link), or the wonderful Vogue outtake in Maillot (link)).

Vogue was already a leading fashion mag representing luxury, sophisticated out of reach elegance of high society, cold beauty. This was elite, a new aristocracy. Horst P. Horst was there on board and Vogue became Vogue owing not just very little to his photography too. So life went on - without Munkacsi.

Is this a shame? Well. The shame is that despite being a big time photographer - that is a big time artist, he only got credited for his skills, not for his art. We wish he'd been regarded as a great artist and not only as a great star, he probably would not have died penniless with an open can of spaghetti in his fridge with a fork in it.

Life was changing and not for his favor. But still he could have had some commissions in a world where in just about every second a new expensive photograph got published and someone went home with a roll of money in his/her pocket. If only we could send an art manager back to hist time, get him to the MoMA and get him accepted as a great artist - for he himself was too busy with survival to take the time and necessary efforts to achieve this.


When André De Dienes (who was told by a fortuneteller at his young age that the double "M", the "MM" will play an important rle in his future) went to America he could bargain quite a great fee owing to the fantastic reputation of the Hungarian photographers, to Martin Munkacsi's in the first place (you'll read this in János Bodnár's wonderful interview-short-story). In 1938 Dr. Agha hired André De Dienes for Vogue. In 1942 Dienes had to leave and for a time he worked for a catalog (Montgomery World). It was called "fashion" too but of course we can imagine the difference between Vogue and a catalog. In 1943 Dr. Agha had to leave Vogue too.

Hoyningen-Huene left Bazaar in 1945 and went to Hollywood. WEEGEE Arthur Fellig went to Hollywood too and quit hist former art starting a totally new thing - manipulated images (quite a change for a hardcore documentarist). Some stayed, some left. Munkacsi happened to be on the non-staying side. We wish he had some place to go. We wish he hadn't been world's and Bazaar's best paid photographer in the 1930's so he could stand a fair chance to get along in the 1940's. We wish we he could make it to the MoMA and get accepted as an artist - which he truly was.

Speaking of MoMA when he got to America Edward Steichen noticed him. Steichen the pioneer photographer however went to the war, he was this type. Munkacsi didn't. He fled from the war - that would have meant a tragic death for him in a camp like for the dear Doctor, Dr. Salomon (who got caught by the nazis in Holland and killed in Auschwitz in 1944 - after a month he got there).

Nobody knows why but Steichen as the curator of MoMA never reached out for the great photographer who could really use some acknowledgment. Of course it doesn't work like that - at least it really didn't. But Munkacsi was left there in a total oblivion. When he died in 1963 an it was Steichen's successor, John Szarkowski at the MoMA's photographic department (who also had been to the war). MoMA like other art institutes refused to take his photographs even for free. That's how they ended up in dusty cardboard boxes in a warehouse like time-capsules waiting for some nicer times to come.

::::: finally: shining through

In history when a great artist died he'd still have a second chance to get thru, meaning posterity. For Martin Munkacsi this wasn't an easy one either (not that it had been "easy" for Van Gogh for example). The atmosphere around Munkacsi must have become quite bitter by the end. They say he'd still show up at the Bazaar's corridors even in the 60's haunting and hunting for some commissions. He held on till his very lasts. But by that time he had multiple hard layers of reasons to be bitter (some 15 years of being neglected will do that for a proud person). Hurt and proud people will hurt others, and get themselves hurt just more - it's not so hard to imagine that by the 1960's socially he might have become a problem for most of the people he knew. That's for his posterity ...

 

Cardboard boxes in a Connecticut warehouse - for as long as it was paid for (for 20 years). Like a sentence of life. And one day the boxes can no loner stay, they even have to leave the warehouse. And then, perhaps in a hazy morning some local auction of oldies takes place in the backyard of a warehouse and some boxes go to a person who perhaps likes collecting old photographs. Fade out.

This moment could have just been the period to the end of a sad and long sentence. But it didn't happen that way. His talent shone thru all those layers of dust and time. There was a young fashion photographer in the 1970's who was struck by the beauty and freshness of Munkacsi's photographs that he happened to see at the Ullstein Verlag (Publishing house). Munkacsi's talent shone thru. Without names, without reputation. Just the pure images. It was quite an encounter for the photographer, he was amazed by the beauty and originality of those pictures - he, as a photographer could really tell. He started to collect Munkacsi which practically meant starting out a research of a lifetime. It was (and is) F.C. Gundlach. Munkacsi's first pioneer admirer, who as much as saved Munkacsi's art for history.

Mr. Gundlach went after the art of the lost artist. Collected Munkacsi pictures and went to all the places that Munkacsi'd been to, went to meet all those people that used to know Munkacsi and from a scattered puzzle he step by step drew out the story how Munkacsi lived and worked.

In 2005 he launched an exhibition in Hamburg that went to Berlin in 2006 and New York in 2007. He managed to get a book published by Steidl, a huge and representative album with texts by Klaus Honnef. A huge celebration. This and the exhibition series shook the world. By F. C. Gundlach Martin Munkacsi was brought back to history.

One day when the exhibition was in New York something happened - all those boxes lost in the mist of history, sold out from the warehouse decades ago all of a sudden popped up on eBay. For $ 1 million. Munkacsi was no longer a noname valueless shadow of history - but the famous photographer from the 1930's who worked for Harper's Bazaar. The seller was quoting Mr. Gundlach's texts so the series of exhibition and all was no random coincidence to the eBay encounter. The curator of the ICP was the fastest however to fetch the catch. Mr. Gundlach couldn't actually get that lost archive - but he's totally content with ICP's and Joan Munkacsi's having it (went to visit there and ICP they showed him the pictures). New York based ICP is a great home for those Hungarian photographers anyhow.

When Munkacsi got out on the eBay, it was one of the first moments he got the respect he deserves. (now he got it from the neutral world and not "only" from those who passionately love him and his art). At this moment his pictures (negatives in the cardboard boxes) were offered for $1 million. He was a brilliant artist working as a commercial photographer his whole life, and now, at this moment all of a sudden he just got it at a marketplace what various art-institutes, generations of art historians failed to provide him for decades: respect for his work, that is respect for his art. The boxes with those 4000 plates of negatives made their way back to history through the undistinguished path of everydays competing with all the other "items" to finally get home, get where they belong: to the great history of Art.

For many decades there were only about 300 photographs by Munkacsi (basically the F.C. Gundlach collection and the Ullstein collection and private persons) and now all of a sudden there's 4000 more. Quite a celebration. Quite an occasion for a new beginning. Also, it's quite a heartwarming feeling to know that his last moment holding on to the last of his cameras and to the essence of his photography at that soccer game (catching the right moment) was not the end. He can finally get the credits for all his contributions to art and photography. We can now start recognizing Munkacsi's work at its fair and right place, that is respecting and enjoying his amazing talent, his brilliant style, sharp mind and amazing know-how, his visual vitality, his addiction to reality and to the beauty of it. He was a revolutioner and even today, ages later when we enjoy the sensation of photography, wherever we look, whenever we look at pictures we'll "still" be enjoying the taste of his revolution ...

::::: original sources, great readings

This article is not a product of an original research but instead an interpretation of all that you can read about Martin Munkacsi. That "all" however is not that many sources, there's really just a few original writings about Martin Munkacsi. The list is short but beautiful, it's F.C. Gundlach who as a fashion photographer himself discovered Munkacsi (in the 1970's) and went to find out all about his life and work - including collecting his pictures and collecting facts and stories from original sources. Whatever we read now about Munkacsi comes almost definitely from F.C. Goundlach and from his research. F.C. Gundlach is committed to saving all the great remnants of analogue photography today when a big change is taking place and traditional, non-digital photography is becoming past and forgotten very quickly, just like vanishing. F.C. Gundlach's primary target for saving has been Martin Munkacsi and history of art and photography can't thank him enough for discovering this brilliant and forgotten artist and getting his work back from oblivion.

We Hungarians can be especially proud of a great biographer and historian of photography, Károly Kincses who's book on Martin Munkacsi (1996) is also fundamental opening a new base for any researchers to come (collecting an extreme amount of memories from Hungarian sources that would have been simply unavailable for others who don't have access to Hungarian Language. He also interviewed Joan Munkacsi, the basic source to any research. Besides collecting Károly Kincses did quite a critical sorting of memories too, adding notes to and labeling them regarding their credibility.

The main resource is however F.C. Gundlach's great album-book, published by Steidl (2006) with the association of author Klaus Honnef and Enno Kaufhold (for details see here at Amazon.com).

Searching the web for Martin Munkacsi you'll definitely find lot's of texts based on Susan Morgan's Munkacsi biography (1992) (see here at amazon.com) which is also an original one, also based on interview with Joan Munkacsi - however some mistakes are obvious, owing to the fact that Joan Munkacsi was a little girl at that time that she's reaching back to.

There's the Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography (2006), of course, that has references to Martin Munkacsi at the chapter -Fashion Photography (of course) by Peter le Grand, and of course a dedicated Martin Munkacsi chapter - by Susan Morgan.

It's these works that serve as a basis to practically anything that one will find on the internet or printed - including our article here, of course. there's no more sources left, nobody who lives and Mr. Gundlach haven't spoken to. So, that is it - for the sources.

One can only gratefully thank these beautiful minds, Mr. Gundlach, his younger associate Sebastian Fox, Károly Kincses for making it possible for us, for everyone to make a contact to Munkacsi's art and person ...



Peter Josvai

any kind of feedback is gratefully welcome, of course

http://www.facebook.com%2Fpeter.josvai

::::: foot note

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Photographs linked and/or appearing in this article belong to Ullstein Verlag (Ullstein Bild) (Munkacsi's Berliner period), to the Harper's Bazaar and ICP.org (International Center of Photography) and F.C. Gundlach respectively.

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