Morath, Inge, 1923-2002

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.

Subjects:
Audiovisual materials
Born digital
Magnum Photos
Morath, Inge, 1923-2002
Photographers -- United States
Photographs
Photojournalism
Women photographers -- United States
Photographic material in the collection includes contact sheets, color slides, and photographic prints.

Morath's documentary photographs depict people and events in a wide range of countries, including Austria, China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Romania, Russia, Spain, and Tunisia, as well as throughout Mexico and the United States.

The collection includes portrait studies of public figures, including Yul Brynner, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Dustin Hoffman, Henry Moore, Anaïs Nin, Pablo Picasso, Andrei Voznesensky, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It also includes projects with her longtime collaborator, artist Saul Steinberg.

Papers in the collection include story lists, captions, notebooks, general files, and publicity related chiefly to her photography. The collection also includes audiovisual material, electronic files, and artifacts.

A group of printed material accompanies the collection and consists of an incomplete set of her monographs, as well as works related to travel, languages, and other subjects.

The collection also chronicles Morath's personal life, including her marriage and family with playwright Arthur Miller, and provides ancillary documentation of his work.

Ingeborg Hermine Morath (About this soundlisten (help·info); May 27, 1923 – January 30, 2002) was an Austrian-born American photographer.[2] In 1953, she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morath was also the third wife of playwright Arthur Miller; their daughter is screenwriter/director Rebecca Miller.