All posts by Inge Morath Estate

Research

Refugees in the Middle East (1960)

Inge Morath: Refugees in the Middle East

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In 1957, Yul Brynner starred in The Journey, a movie about the Hungarian Revolution directed by Anatole Litvak. Filmed in Austria, the actors included a group of refugees, displaced from their homes during the Revolution, cast as extras. Magnum photographers Inge Morath and Ernst Haas, Austrian natives who had worked together in Vienna during the early post-war years, were assigned to the set, and Morath—always drawn to the mise en scène—made a series of compelling portraits of the refugee actors. Brynner later wrote that the film marked his first real encounter with refugees.

Two years later, the United Nations declared 1959 World Refugee Year, and Brynner was recruited as Special Consultant to UN High Commissioner for Refugees “to assist in efforts to bring to the attention of people all over the world the problems of refugees and the possibilities for their solution.” A serious photographer himself—his pictures were distributed by Magnum Photos—Brynner invited Inge Morath to travel with him to refugee camps in Europe and the Middle East.

In 1960, they published Bring Forth The Children, a photographic report on the plight of refugee children. They also collaborated on a related exhibition, and Morath published a story under her own byline in the periodical DU.

For Morath, the commission would have been especially poignant. A university student in Berlin during the Second World War, when Morath declined to join the National Socialist student organization she was drafted for factory service, where she worked alongside prisoners of war. When the factory she had been assigned to was bombed, Morath joined the masses of refugees made homeless by the war, and she returned to Austria on foot. Many years later, at Magnum Photos, Morath refused to photograph war, preferring to work on stories that expose its dire consequences.

This small selection of photographs represents the preliminary work towards a forthcoming project of the Inge Morath Foundation, in cooperation with Magnum Photos, the Estate of Yul Brynner, and Steidl. The accompanying captions are by Inge Morath and Yul Brynner, from Bring Forth the Children.

News

Inge Morath: First Color in Munich

Inge Morath: First Color in Munich

CLAIR, in cooperation with the Inge Morath Foundation and Magnum Photos, announces the exhibition of Inge Morath’s First Color, a selection of color photographs from the first two decades of Morath’s career. A small selection of related black and white vintage prints will also be presented. Please join us at the opening reception on December 7th.


Franz-Joseph-Str. 10
80801 Munich, Germany
December 7, 2010 to January 22, 2011
Reception: December 7, 7 to 10pm

 

IM Mag 2010/2011, IM Magazine

Eman Mohammed: What Lies Beneath the Rubble

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Eman Mohammed (Palestinian Authority): What Lies Beneath the Rubble/Aftermath of War in the Gaza Strip

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One of the main goals in this project is to enter deeply, creating  a connected photographic story. Unlike a single photo or a sequence of single images, which are common in photojournalism, I am trying to express an alternative kind of story telling.

What lies beneath the rubble :

Between the shattered memories of the past and the unknown misty future lie the piles of remains that used to be called “Home” by Mohammed Khader and his wife, Ebtesam, and their 22 family members. This is where they take shelter, in the ruins of a house that was targeted during the Israeli War on the Gaza Strip during 2008 – 09. Khader’s family lived for the past 12 months beneath the rubble, without electricity or supplies, relying on humanitarian aid from international and local organizations. Continue reading Eman Mohammed: What Lies Beneath the Rubble →

IM Mag 2010/2011, IM Magazine

Claire Martin: Selections from The Downtown East Side and Slab City

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Claire Martin (Australia): Selections from The Downtown East Side and Slab City
Inge Morath Award Recipient, 2010

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Editor’s note: In 2010, in recognition of exceptional quality of submissions received, two applicants were selected as winners of the Inge Morath Award. Lurdes Basolí’s winning project was featured in IM Magazine in September 2010.

Both my previous works “The Downtown East Side” and “Slab City” have explored communities of people living in desperate conditions in prosperous, stable countries. The Downtown East Side is located in Vancouver, Canada. The ten block radius is home to a host of social problems including extreme poverty, an AIDS rate estimated at over 30% and the leading cause of death is overdose. Slab City is a squatters community located in the Colorado Desert in California. Residents of this community live in some of the worst conditions in the USA with no access to electricity, sewage, water or waste disposal. Mental illness, addiction and poor coping strategies are the common factors that brought these people to their respective communities. I was drawn to document these communities because the same issues have played a role in my own life. Continue reading Claire Martin: Selections from The Downtown East Side and Slab City →

News

IM Foundation Launches New Web Site

IM Foundation Launches IM Magazine

On September 15th, 2010, the Inge Morath Foundation will launch its new web site, featuring IM Magazine, a monthly, web-based publication of notable documentary projects by young women photographers. IM Magazine is being created in order to extend Inge Morath’s legacy of encouragement and support to more of the many worthy photographers who apply each year for the Inge Morath Award. The IM Award was established by the members of Magnum Photos in 2002, in tribute to their colleague, who was associated with the agency for more than fifty years. Funded by the photographers, the Award is administered by the Inge Morath Foundation in cooperation with the Magnum Foundation, New York. Continue reading IM Foundation Launches New Web Site →

IM Mag 2010/2011, IM Magazine

Lurdes R. Basolí: Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets

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Lurdes R. Basolí (Spain): Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets
Inge Morath Award Winner, 2010

Gallery offline – updating soon

Editor’s note: In 2010, in recognition of exceptional quality of submissions received, two applicants were selected as winners of the Inge Morath Award. Lurdes Basolí’s winning project will be featured in IM Magazine in September, and Claire Martin’s project in October 2010.

In Venezuela life is worth the price of a bullet. This photographic project proposes a black and white x-ray of an unending war. Urban violence in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, is every year killing thousands of young people. They are chiefly direct or collateral victims of a social and urban conflict where bullets and blood are mixed with drugs and culebras (problems among rival gangs). These are the tendencies of a mob which slip across favelas and streets of the most oil-poor neighborhoods in Venezuela (it is a paradox that in a country so rich in oil, its inhabitants live in harsh conditions). Death lives together with live every day, as figures corroborate: Venezuela has suffered the death of more than 120,000 people since Hugo Chavez came to power (1998); 21,500 only in Caracas. More figures: in Caracas there are 129 killings per each 100,000 inhabitants (1 in Madrid, 7 in Buenos Aires). This makes Caracas the most dangerous capital in America. Continue reading Lurdes R. Basolí: Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets →

News

Claire Martin in BJP

Claire Martin interviewed in British Journal of Photography

 

Claire Martin is one of two winners of the 2010 Inge Morath Award. Her winning project will be presented in the October 2010 IM Magazine.

From the Interview:

BJP: Can you tell us about the project you submitted to the Inge Morath Award?
Claire Martin: I submitted images form both my Downtown East Side series and from my Slab City series because although they focus on different communities, they share common qualities. The Downtown East Side is located in Vancouver, Canada. The ten block radius is home to a host of social problems including extreme poverty, an AIDS rate estimated at over 30% and the leading cause of death is overdose. Slab City is a squatters community located in the Colorado Desert in California. Residents of this community live in some of the worst conditions in the USA with no access to electricity, sewage, water or waste disposal. Mental illness, addiction and poor coping strategies are the common factors that brought these people to their respective communities. So I am trying to create visual media and conversation on issues of mental health, addiction and poverty and their place in developed countries.

News

2010 Inge Morath Award Winners Announced

2010 Inge Morath Award Winners Announced

The Inge Morath Foundation and the The Magnum Foundation are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2010 Inge Morath Award.

Each June, the winner of the Inge Morath Award is selected by the full membership of Magnum Photos during their annual meeting. This year, in recognition of exceptional quality of submissions received, the membership selected two applicants as winners of the Award, and voted a one-time doubling of the funds available so that both would receive a full grant of $5,000. The two winners are Lurdes R. Basolí of Spain, for her project “Caracas, The City of Lost Bullets,” and Claire Martin of Australia, for her ongoing documentation of marginalized communities within prosperous nations. Continue reading 2010 Inge Morath Award Winners Announced →

News

Inge Morath in Beyond Color

Inge Morath to be included in “Beyond Color: Color in American Photography, 1950-1970”

From the Press Release by Bruce Silverstein Gallery:

While considerable attention over the previous two decades has been paid to the influences of “early” color photography upon the direction of the medium and contemporary art in general, almost all critical analysis through writings and exhibitions have focused upon works created in the 1970s and after, most notably those works made for and after the now famous, 1976 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Photographs by William Eggleston, curated by John Szarkowski. This MoMA exhibition set the groundwork for defining a new purpose for color photography – one that focused more upon the conceptual implications of the photograph and its creation, and away from the formalistic attributes of the image as well as the attention to color itself.

Beyond Color: COLOR in American Photography, 1950-1970 serves as an examination of the moment in photography’s short history before these expectations for color photography were imposed – it is important to draw attention to those photographers who chose to devote their energy toward

color at a time when this decision would have seemingly further removed them from the world of fine art photography. The works exhibited were created with various intentions and motivations, and take even more varied forms of output, but what unites the work is the creator’s use of color film before its artistic relevance was widely accepted.

Photographers include: Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, Ruth Orkin, Marvin E. Newman, Saul Leiter, Arthur Siegal, Harry Callahan, Pete Turner, Garry Winogrand, Inge Morath and Marie Cosindas.

Address:
Bruce Silverstein Gallery, 535 West 24th Street, New York City

Opening:
September 16th, 6 – 8pm

IM Stories

First Color (1953 – 1965)

Inge Morath: First Color (1953 – 1965)

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“Rediscovering Inge Morath’s Early Color Photographs” by Mary Panzer.

The recovery of Inge Morath’s color work provides the opportunity to greatly expand our knowledge of Morath’s working techniques as a photographer. In some cases, although their original sequences have been lost, it is now possible to restore photo-essays from which the color pictures had been removed. In so doing, we gain a deeper insight into Morath’s method as we watch her decide when and where to use color film. We see when she recognized that only color could relay the message she wanted to send. 

We discover photographs that use color with wit and a sure touch, in a way that only Morath could achieve. No less crucially, when we open the door to Morath’s color photographs, her work allows us to consider the color work of an entire generation. The effort to see Morath’s work in its original context, on the pages of magazines such as Holiday, LIFE, and Paris March, leads us to discover how much color photography was published in the decades following World War II, even by those who insisted that they never worked in color, or never did so willingly – including all those who worked for Magnum Photos – during the 1950s and ’60s. Surely Inge Morath would have enjoyed the irony of this process. The work to which she leads us has always been there, hiding in plain sight, obscured by the acceptance of rules made long ago by men and women who never followed them in the first place. The work that Inge Morath kept, but never exhibited, now opens the door to a new kind of history, within which she shines.  

© Mary Panzer, 2009.

Excerpted from “The Complete Story – Black and White, and Color: Rediscovering Inge Morath’s Early Color Photographs,” in Inge Morath: First Color, Göttingen: Steidl, 2009.

Read the Afterword by John Jacob