MORATH, INGE
MORATH, INGE
1923
2002
Biography

 

1923
Inge Morath, was born in Graz on 27 May as Ingeborg Mörath and christened a Protestant. Her parents were the scientists Edgar and Mathilde Mörath. The family lived in Freiburg im Breisgau, where her father was employed as a wood processing specialist. Her brother Werner was born in 1924. Future homes – Munich, Eberswalde near Berlin, Darmstadt etc. –  were dictated by her father’s rapidly changing jobs.

Around 1928
the family moved to Schirmbeck in Alsace, then to Viches in France. Inge had only just learned a little French when she was dressed in a uniform and carried to a school run by nuns, where her education began.

Around 1930 – 1938
they lived in Darmstadt, and from her second year of school she attended the Viktoriaschule, run by Protestant nuns. During the visits to her grandparents in Graz, her grandfather showed her how to use an old-fashioned plate camera – her first insight into photography. As a chemist, her mother worked with microphotography.

1938
moved to Berlin. Inge Morath attended the Luisenschule, a humanist grammar school. Museums prompted her interest in painting. She saw the exhibition “Entartete Kunst” on a school trip.

1939
On completing her schooling, Inge Morath was conscripted for six months into “labour service” in East Prussia. She then began studying French, English and Romanian at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, spending a short period in Romania. She displayed little enthusiasm for the duties imposed on students by the Nazis.

1944/45
After graduating she was conscripted to work in an arms factory in Tempelhof; during an air raid she fled on foot to Salzburg.

In August 1945
she found work in Salzburg as a translator and journalist for the United States Information Service. She wrote local news articles for the radio station “Rot-Weiss-Rot”, likewise under US Allied control.

1946
moved to Vienna. When the Americans set up a “Service” there, she worked for the newspaper “Kurier”. 

1948
worked for the magazine “Optimist” in Vienna, where she met Ingeborg Bachmann and Ilse Aichinger.

From March 1948
she worked as a picture editor for the illustrated magazine HEUTE, founded by the Americans and published in Munich. Most of her reportage was produced together with the Austrian photographer Ernst Haas. 

1949
In August 1949 HEUTE published the reportage “While the Women Wait …” about returning prisoners-of-war, written by Inge Morath with photographs by Ernst Haas. Robert Capa was shown the article and invited them both to visit Magnum in Paris.

On 27 April 1947
the photographers Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David “Chim” Seymour, George Rodgers and the two shareholders Maria Eisner and Rita Vandivert had founded the independent picture agency Magnum as a cooperative of like-minded humanist photographers. After their visit, Ernst Haas began contributing photographs to Magnum while Inge Morath, with her language skills, worked for them as a writer and office assistant. 

1951/52
married the British journalist Lionel Birch and moved to London. Inge Morath took her first photographs during a trip to Venice, discovering photography as her metier. She gained work experience with, Simon Guttmann, who had founded the picture agency Dephot in Berlin and now had an agency in London. 

1953
worked hard on her camera technique; she accompanied Henri Cartier-Bresson on a photographic trip to Spain, took her own photographs in London and sold her first pictures under the pseudonym Egni Tarom.

1956
First visit to the United States.

1955
Morath became a full member of Magnum as a photographer.
Her pictures were from this time on carried regularly as commissioned series by illustrated magazines and photography books in Europe and beyond; she portrayed friends, but also people she met on the street.  

1959
For UNESCO she travelled around Europe and the Near East with Yul Brunner, photographing refugees and the “forgotten children” in places like Camp Asten in the British Zone near Linz, village of Betsafafa, West Bank, Palestine.

1960
From New York she drove across North America with Henri Cartier-Bresson to Reno, Nevada, to take stills during the shoot of “The Misfits” starring Marilyn Monroe (screenplay Arthur Miller, director John Houston).

1962
married the American playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005) after his separation from Marilyn Monroe. 

1962
Birth of her daughter Rebecca Miller. 

1965
First trip to the Soviet Union along with Arthur Miller.

1966
Inge Morath became a US citizen. Birth of her son Daniel Miller.

1978
First trip to China

1991
Inge Morath was awarded Austria’s major photography prize. Premiere of “Copyright by Inge Morath”, the film portrait by Berlin director Sabine Eckhard. 

1999
Medal of Honour in Gold from the Austrian capital Vienna.

2001
Inge Morath began her last great photography project on the border trail between Styria and Slovenia: “Grenz.Räume – Last Journey”, made for Graz, 2003 Capital of Culture. 

2002
Inge Morath died in New York City on 30 January.

 


OPENING

Wednesday,  25. April 2018 | 19 h

SPEAKER

Elisabeth Moortgat
Das Verborgene Museum

Kurt Kaindl
FOTOHOF Salzburg
Die Fotografin Inge Morath – Bilder und Briefe

Duration

26. April 2018 - 26. August 2018

OPENING HOURS

The Museum is only open during the exhibition period !!

Thursday, Friday 15 - 19 h
Saturday, Sunday 12 - 16 h

LOCATION

DAS VERBORGENE MUSEUM
Schlüterstrasse 70
10625 Berlin-Charlottenburg

TRAFFIC CONNECTION

S5, 7, 75, 9  Savignyplatz
U2 Ernst-Reuter-Platz,
Bus M49, X34, 101

CITYMAP

please refer Contact

 

PHONE

+49 (0) 30 313 36 56

MAIL ADDRESS


 

 

FLYER  to the Exhibition

 

PUBLICATION
“Inge Morath – Fotografien”, edited by Kurt Kaindl with texts by Inge Morath, Kurt Kaindl, Margit Zuckriegl, published by Edition Fotohof, Salzburg 2000, can be bought at the museum for € 42.00.

 

MOVIE | To be seen only in the exhibition
Documentary film screening
“Copyright by Inge Morath" (1991) is the portrait of a photographer and extraordinary woman, the story of an unusual artist marriage, and a piece of the history of photography. The film by Berlin director Sabine Eckhard gives an uncommented insight into the life and work of Inge Morath and shows her at home in Connecticut, New York and Paris, along with colleagues such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliot Erwitt, as well as with her husband Arthur Miller.