Forty-Eighth Street window washers, New York City, USA

Inge Morath was born in Graz, Austria, in 1923. After studying languages in Berlin, she became a translator, then a journalist and the Austrian editor for Heute, an Information Service Branch publication based in Munich. All her life Morath would remain a prolific diarist and letter-writer, retaining a dual gift for words and pictures that made her unusual among her colleagues.



A friend of photographer Ernst Haas, she wrote articles to accompany his photographs and was invited by Robert Capa and Haas to Paris to join the newly founded Magnum agency as an editor and researcher. She began photographing in London in 1951, and joined Magnum Photos as a photographer in 1953. While working on her own first assignments, Morath also assisted Henri Cartier-Bresson during 1953-54, becoming a full member in 1955.



In the following years, Morath traveled extensively in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Her special interest in the arts found expression in photographic essays published by a number of leading magazines. After her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller in 1962, Morath settled in New York and Connecticut. She first visited the USSR in 1965. In 1972 she studied Mandarin and obtained a visa to China, making the first of many trips to the country in 1978.



Morath was at ease anywhere. Some of her most important work consists of portraits, but of passers-by as well as celebrities. She was also adept at photographing places: her pictures of Boris Pasternak's home, Pushkin's library, Chekhov's house, Mao Zedong's bedroom, artists' studios and cemetery memorials are permeated with the spirit of invisible people still present. Inge Morath died in New York City on 30 January 2002.



- Source: Magnum Photos


Read our blog post about Inge Morath HERE.

Artist CV (PDF)
Artist Bio (PDF)

The Extraordinary Life and Work of 20th - Century Photographer Inge Morath - AnOther Magazine, November 2018

From llamas to lefties: the intrepid Inge Morath - in pictures -The Guardian, November 2018

The quiet brilliance of Magnum photographer Inge Morath - The Guardian, November 2018

Learning From The Master - Magnum Photos, October, 2018

Making llamas feel more glamorous than Marilyn Monroe: Inge Morath's iconic works (PDF) - DW, April 2018