Munkácsi's revolution (part 8 / 11)

::::: 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.

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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)

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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.

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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

• an uncredited artist
• being the best paid photographer of the world
• the pioneer and the "newcomers"
• Munkacsi's revolution : addiction & penetration to reality
• Potsdam 1933
• Munkacsi's festive style
• Having Fun at Breakfast
• the counter-revolution
• the road to oblivion
• finally: shining through
• original sources, great readings