Martin Munkácsi - Influenced HCB

[raydm6]

A photographer who influenced Cartier-Bresson.

First I have heard of him. Wonderful photographs.

Best Regards, Henri Cartier-Bresson — Blind Magazine

They are the successors of Nadar, Paul Strand, Florence Henri... Their images continue to enrich the world history of photography and our own impatient eyes. Blind shares the memories of some magical encounters with these virtuosos of the camera, soloists in black & white or in color, artists...

www.blind-magazine.com

Martin Munkácsi

Masters of Photography, Photography Masters, Photography, Photography Blog, John A. Benigno

mastersofphotography.blogspot.com

Galleries by omoses

www.pbase.com

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I think it's safe to say that everyone who was a photographer influenced HCB (and that might be a wise thing for us to remember in our own photographic endeavors). He was sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and highly educated; no doubt his work is in some ways a reaction against the brittle artificiality that was very present in photography at that time. It's important to embrace the traditions and influences of those predecessors you admire, and to react against the stale and trite work of those you don't. But there's no way around the need to know the full spectrum of photographic history, to educate oneself.
I sometimes wonder what photography, and by extension HCB's work, would have looked like had the Leica not been invented. Would he even have become a photographer? Who knows; I'm sure he would still have been an important visual artist of some sort. But the Leica and HCB represent the perfect synergy.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I sometimes wonder what photography, and by extension HCB's work, would have looked like had the Leica not been invented. Would he even have become a photographer? Who knows; I'm sure he would still have been an important visual artist of some sort. But the Leica and HCB represent the perfect synergy.

He started photography very young with a 6x9cm camera. In the 1920's he studied painting with André Lothe. In the early 1930's he was for some time in Africa (just like Céline, another very famous frenchman) where he got a 4x3cm Krauss Eka, a French camera that used unperforated 35mm film. Back in Europe he traveled with the Eka in Europe: Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia. In 1932 he borrowed money from his father to buy a Leica. With the camera he moved to Marseille. There he made his first, now very famous Leica pictures.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

He started photography very young with a 6x9cm camera. In the early 1930's he was for some time in Africa (just like Céline, another very famous frenchman) where he got a 4x3cm Krauss Eka, a French camera that used unperforated 35mm film. Back in Europe he traveled with the Eka in Europe: Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia. In 1932 he borrowed money from his father to buy a Leica. With the camera he moved with to Marseille. There he made his first, now very famous Leica pictures.

New info for me, thanks! It seems he was pretty committed to photography well before the Leica.

 

[Erik van Straten]

New info for me, thanks! It seems he was pretty committed to photography well before the Leica.

Yes he was, read the biography by Pierre Assouline.

 

[Freakscene]

A photographer who influenced Cartier-Bresson.

First I have heard of him. Wonderful photographs.

Best Regards, Henri Cartier-Bresson — Blind Magazine

They are the successors of Nadar, Paul Strand, Florence Henri... Their images continue to enrich the world history of photography and our own impatient eyes. Blind shares the memories of some magical encounters with these virtuosos of the camera, soloists in black & white or in color, artists...

www.blind-magazine.com

Martin Munkácsi

Masters of Photography, Photography Masters, Photography, Photography Blog, John A. Benigno

mastersofphotography.blogspot.com

Galleries by omoses

www.pbase.com

An original print from the 1930s of the photo Freida Kahlo and Diego Rivera was part of the exhibition Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2023.

Munkácsi’s prints are unusually good and expressive - he must have been a real darkroom artist too. The pre-WWII prints that HCB made of his own work, as a point of comparison, were pretty ordinary in a lot of ways, and the work he had done later was much better, irrespective of the interesting claims he made about ownership and collectability which are repeated at Fondation HCB.

Anything about photography by Brigitte Ollier is definitely worthreading.

Marty

 

[boojum]

These guys from "the golden age of photography" did not exist in vacuums. They, as we, were interested in what other folks were shooting. And they, as we, will pick up a trick if seen. It is our nature. This is called learning. Even those folks in the Lascaux Caves had to be cribbing from each other and look at the magnificent work they did. Picasso said he wished he could paint as well as they did. You know he cribbed a bit from them, too. So we all strive and all are impressed and some of us improve.

This is the fun of the game for me. Not to be an HCB or a Vivian Maier or a William Albert Allard or any of the other ones I am admire but to be influenced by without obviously stealing. On this board it is the same. I may see something and say, "Hey, that's cool" and file it away and maybe, maybe, remember it when I have a camera in front of my face. In some ways I think that much learning is a replay of Zeno's Paradox where the distance we move is halved with each move until the move is so small as to be almost imperceptible. But we still have to do it or stagnate.

 

[Richard G]

The picture that so inspired Cartier-Bresson:

https://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll00605lldJETGFgbNECfDrCWvaHBOcvZOC/martin-munk%C3%A1csi-boys-running-into-the-surf-at-lake-tanganyika,-liberia.jpg

 

[Out to Lunch]

 

[boojum]

The picture that so inspired Cartier-Bresson:

https://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll00605lldJETGFgbNECfDrCWvaHBOcvZOC/martin-munk%C3%A1csi-boys-running-into-the-surf-at-lake-tanganyika,-liberia.jpg

Yes, I have heard that this was the one. He lived in Africa for a while. It is rumored he was fond of the harissa hot paste called Le Phare du Cap Bon. I like hot sauce and have been using this harissa now for a while. My pics have not gotten one bit better as a result. Nope. ;o) It is a pretty good hot sauce, though.

 

[raydm6]

The picture that so inspired Cartier-Bresson:

https://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll00605lldJETGFgbNECfDrCWvaHBOcvZOC/martin-munk%C3%A1csi-boys-running-into-the-surf-at-lake-tanganyika,-liberia.jpg

You know until yesterday, I always thought it was an HCB photo.

 

[Ororaro]

Harissa is sweet sauce.

 

[Ororaro]

 

[Erik van Straten]

A few years later he traveled to Spain a few times and then to South America. He lost all his money and lived very cheaply for a while in the red light district of Mexico City. There he made some fantastic pictures. Later he got some money from a relative who worked as a diplomat. With that money he was able to travel to New York. He lived in Harlem and met Walker Evans, but also became fascinated by film. Back in France he became an assistant of the film maker Jean Renoir.

 

[boojum]

A few years later he traveled to Spain a few times and then to South America. He lost all his money and lived very cheaply for a while in the red light district of Mexico City. There he made some fantastic pictures. Later he got some money from a relative who worked as a diplomat. With that money he was able to travel to New York. He lived in Harlem and met Walker Evans, but also became fascinated by film. Back in France he became an assistant of the film maker Jean Renoir.

This perplexes me as he was the son of a very wealthy French family. Was there a falling out? Was he too proud to petition for family help? And at the end of his life he was obviously well off. I doubt he was solely supported by photo sales.

 

[Erik van Straten]

This perplexes me as he was the son of a very wealthy French family. Was there a falling out? Was he too proud to petition for family help? And at the end of his life he was obviously well off. I doubt he was solely supported by photo sales.

It was 1934. Things were a bit different then. Read the biography by Pierre Assouline. He started selling pictures only well after the war when he had founded Magnum, together with Robert Capa and David Seymour. During the war he was a soldier in the French army, but was taken prisoner by the Germans. Before he was caught, he had buried his Leica somewhere in the Vosges. Years later, in 1944, he escaped from the prison camp, dug up his Leica and, on behalf of the publisher Braun, began to take illegal photographs of famous artists such as Matisse and Bonnard - with the cooperation of the artists themselves ofcourse - so these now famous photo's were taken in 1944/1945, during the war.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

It was 1934. Things were a bit different then. Read the biography by Pierre Assouline. He started selling pictures only well after the war when he had founded Magnum, together with Robert Capa and David Seymour. During the war he was a soldier in the French army, but was taken prisoner by the Germans. Before he was caught, he had buried his Leica somewhere in the Vosges. Years later, in 1944, he escaped from the prison camp, dug up his Leica and, on behalf of the publisher Braun, began to take illegal photographs of famous artists such as Matisse and Bonnard - with the cooperation of the artists themselves ofcourse - so these now famous photo's were taken in 1944/1945, during the war.

Quite a full life! While one can make interesting and beautiful pictures of the flowers in the back yard, I do think it helps to bang around a bit and get some experience under your belt. But I'd stop short of being in a Nazi prison camp, myself.

 

[raydm6]

I like this one. The building on the right resembles film perforations.


Martin Munkacsi

[Woman with umbrella on rooftop, New York]​