Yet another reason to visit New York City this winter. After you finish touring the Glitter and Doom exhibit on Weimar painting at the Met, take a cab back down to 43rd street to the International Center for Photography to see the exhibit of Martin Munkacsi’s photographs. This exhibit was originally organized by F.C. Gundlach at the Haus der Photographie, Hamburg, includes over 125 vintage photographs as well as magazines and page layouts. Munkacsi first gained famed as the star photographer for the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, the leading illustrated German newsmagazine in the late 1920s. His photos captured the speed. vitality and fun of the times. And also beauty, such as this famous picture from 1930, Boys Running Into the Surf at Lake Tanganyika.
It was this photograph that inspired perhaps the greatest photographer of the 20th century – Henri Cartier-Bresson – to pick up the camera. He wrote to Munkacsi’s daugther:
"Probably in 1931 or 1932 I saw a photograph by your father of three black children running into the sea, and I must say that it is that very photograph which was for me the spark that set fire to the fireworks […] and made me suddenly realize that photography could reach eternity through the moment. It is only that one photograph which influenced me"
Munkacsi eventually escaped Nazi Germany and made his way to New York City where he revolutionized fashion photography. You can see Munkasci’s influence on the great Cartier-Bresson, since the International Center for Photography is simultaneously holding an exhibit of some of his best work: Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook.
