Martin Munkácsi

Martin Munkácsi began his career working for the Hungarian newspaper Az Est, as a writer and photographer. During his early career he photographed sporting events, German street life and other reportage photography, frequently travelling on assignment to places such as Turkey, London, Egypt and Liberia. In his photographs, Munkácsi sought to capture the speed and movement that defined the early modern era, injecting his compositions with a dynamism. Dominated by strong diagonal lines and an aerial viewpoint, Munkácsi’s photographs defy the static quality of photography’s ‘frozen moment.’ Emigrating to the United States in the 1930s, he began working for Harper’s Bazaar, turning his attention towards fashion photography. Employing the same approach he had used in his street photography, he brought an informality and vitality that revolutionised the genre. 

Munkácsi was born in Hungary in 1896. Moving to Berlin in 1928, he worked for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, before moving to the United States, where he remained for the rest of his life. His work is held in several permanent collections and has been exhibited at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, the International Center of Photography, New York and the Jewish Museum, New York among others. Munkácsi died in New York in 1963.