In 1932 Henri Cartier-Bresson saw a perfectly composed picture that would have inspired him throughout his life. The photograph framed three black boys from the back as they ran for a swim, water splashing around them. "For me this photograph was the spark that ignited my enthusiasm," Cartier-Bresson stated. "I suddenly realized that, by capturing the moment, photography was able to achieve eternity. It is the only photograph to have influenced me. This picture has such intensity, such joie de vivre, such a sense of wonder that it continues to fascinate me to this day."
Taken by Martin Munkácsi, the picture made Cartier-Bresson realise that photography could fix eternity in an instant. Yet Munkácsi wasn't just great at capturing eternity in a single shoot, he also managed to achieve in his images a great dynamism and very unusual points of view and angles.
Born Márton Mermelstein in 1896 in Kolozsvár, Hungary (his father changed the family name to Munkácsi in response to the rising anti-Semitism), Munkácsi started his career working as a newspaper writer (he published reports, articles and poems on various papers and magazines since the age of 18) and as a self-taught sport photographer. His images portraying people performing various sports were peculiar as he always managed to catch his subjects in the process of performing specific acts or movements.
Munkácsi landed a job with the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (Berlin Illustrated News) at the end of the '20s after some pictures he took during a fatal quarrel in a street were used during the trial to identify the killer. One of the first images he published for the Berliner portrayed a motorcycle splashing its way through a puddle, the texture of the water almost turning the image into an impressionist painting.
Though interested in documentary socio-photography, Munkácsi continued producing a variety of images that went from shoots of polo matches to pictures of a pilot school for women. Little by little, he also added to his repertoire fashion and lifestyle images, while his travels to Turkey, Sicily, Egypt, London, New York, and Liberia allowed him to introduce to the Berliner readers some exotic and unusual portraits and landscapes at times taken from incredible viewpoints.
In March 1933 Munkácsi photographed the Day of Potsdam, when President Paul von Hindenburg handed Germany over to Adolf Hitler. Though a Jewish foreigner, Munkácsi was allowed to photograph Hitler and his circle for the Berliner until 1934 when the Jewish members of the staff were dismissed and Munkácsi's innovative images were replaced with pictures of German troops.
Munkácsi moved to New York, where he started a new chapter in his life: he signed on for $100,000 with Harper's Bazaar, becoming one of the best-paid fashion photographers and working at the same time for further publications including Life (in March 1943 he did a photoreportage on the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) that took the readers behind the scenes of the training women went through in these auxiliary units) and the Ladies' Home Journal.
Once again his images brought a freshness and inventiveness that would inspire many other photographers: fashion images were often shot in the studio, but Munkácsi started taking pictures outdoors, portraying models moving, walking, running, in mid-leap or mid-stride, achieving in this way a new kind of beauty, less static and rigid and more dynamically intriguing.
Fashion photography was therefore taken where the clothes were really worn, the street or the beach, as seen in a seminal fashion shoot for Harper's Bazaar in November 1933 with a smiling Lucile Brokow running on a chilly Long Island beach, a simple yet strikingly beautiful cape billowing behind her.
Munkácsi also took pictures of many celebrities and Hollywood stars including Katharine Hepburn, Leslie Howard, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Jane Russell, Louis Armstrong, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich and did a shoot for Life that showed Fred Astaire caught mid-air as he performed his artful acrobatic poses. Munkácsi died in 1963 in poverty and controversy.
Often compared to Robert Capa for his contribution to the birth of photojournalism, Munkácsi had an impact on Cartier-Bresson, but also on Richard Avedon.
Munkácsi's images were spontaneous, unforced and dynamic; viewpoints, depth of field, and cropping methods were the main points behind his revolutionary art.
He often climbed on ladders and walls to find a new angle (he once strapped himself on the side of a moving race car, suffering serious injury in his quest for an exciting and innovative picture; during the coffee crisis he flew to Rio de Janeiro on board of a Zeppelin to shoot a unique photoreportage) that allowed him to transform a subject into an element of a perfectly designed sophisticated, fresh and energetic composition. He also employed materials such as water or dust in the same way an artist would use different paints - to create textures and patterns.
There have been quite a few exhibitions in the last few years about the world of Munkácsi that saved his name from oblivion and some of his images are currently part of a fashion photography exhibition entitled "About Fashion" at the Balenciaga Museum (until 31st January 2016). Next year will mark Munkácsi's 120th birth anniversary, so let's hope a few museums will celebrate him with further events that may introduce him to new generations of photographers.
In an article published on Harper's Bazaar in November 1935 the photographer wrote about himself: "My 'trick' – is there one? Well, perhaps a bitter youth with many changes of occupation, with the necessity of trying everything from writing poetry to berry picking. These difficult early years probably constitute the sources of my modest photographic activity."
The best thing about Munkácsi is indeed the fact that he fluidly moved from one topic or subject to the next, something that many modern photographers aren't capable of doing (how many fashion photographers are also known for images chronicling a news event or a key historical moment?). He also highlighted that technique must always follow content, as the content and the message are more important than the way they are delivered, in a nutshell technique is cold and content is warm.
Munkácsi has therefore still got great lessons to teach us, especially when we ponder about the fact that we have smartphones capable of taking perfect images, but we use them to produce vapid selfies and trendy street style pictures that will be out of fashion in three months' time. "Think while you shoot", was Munkácsi' motto and professional principle - it wouldn't be a bad idea to adopt it in our modern times, so focused on instant visual gratification and emotionally empty images.
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