The international exhibition at the Castle Museum of the Budapest History Museum has brought the works of photographers of Hungarian heritage to Budapest, whose oeuvres are connected to France from the 1920s up till the present day.
Through the vintage photographs of thirty authors – in part well-known, in part still unknown in Hungary – a cross-section of photographic history is drawn from the given immersion. The original photos are complemented with original documentation, objects and moving image material, as well. Alongside the nearly two hundred artworks, the curatorial conception dedicates a special section to a selection of fifty contact sheets, which offer original working surfaces that reflect their era, that permit an extraordinary insight into the creative process embracing the period extending from the 1920s all the way up to the present day. The sources for the exhibition that aligns an array of an impressive number of photographs that have never been shown before, is in part Hungarian, but the bulk is French public and private photography collections. The exhibition was born from the research of Júlia Cserba and Gabriella Cseh, with the fundamental idea provided by the recently published volume, Magyar származású fotográfusok Franciaországban [Photographers of Hungarian Heritage in France].
In the photography history of the twentieth century, with particular consideration given to the period between the two world wars, the number of photographers of Hungarian heritage was exceedingly high in France; with their activity and agency of defining significance, they contributed to the development of modern photography and the renaissance of the genre. While in France it is common knowledge that such personalities who defined their age in the new media, as André Kertész, Brassaï and Robert Capa were Hungarians, at the same time, it has been much less known, even in Hungary, of others, such as, for instance, Nora Dumas, Ergy Landau, Ervin Marton, Émeric Fehér, André Steiner, Lucien Hervé, Rogi André, Rosie Rey, that they, too, were Hungarian compatriots.
Artists and intellectuals who wanted to break free from the increasingly oppressive Hungarian political atmosphere in the years following World War I, and who yearned for greater creative freedom, left Hungary en masse. Many among them settled primarily in Berlin, and next in Paris.
The emphasised goal of the exhibition arranged at the Castle Museum of the Budapest Historical Museum, was to show against the background of well-known photographers, also the work of artists either lesser known or completely unknown in Hungary up till now, as well as to provide a space for contemporary generations, without any claims for completeness.
Gabriella Cseh and Júlia Cserba, curators of the exhibition
With : Aatoth, Aigner, Almasy, André, Barna, Bernand-Mantel, Brassaï, Capa, Cseh, Dumas, Detvay, Feher, Fékété, Fleischer, Haar, Hervé, Hervé, Kertész, Klein, Kollar, Labori Mészöly, Landau, Marton, Nadj, Pörneczi, Rey, Révai, Sarkantyu, Steiner, Sved, Trauner
Practical information:
Au revoir! Photographers of Hungarian Heritage in France
at Castle Museum – Budapest History Museum, 1014 Budapest, Szent György tér 2. –
Château de Buda, Bâtiment E
From October, Friday 04, 2019 to Sunday January 05, 2020
Opening on October, Friday 04, 2019, at 3pm
More information on: http://www.btm.hu/en/
Information
Castle Museum – Château de Buda, Bâtiment E
Budapest History Museum, Budapest, Szent György tér 2, 1014 Hongrie
October 04, 2019 to January 05, 2020
