The history of Hungarian photography was, and is, like that of the nations around us. Particular in local values; occasionally overestimated and hardly counted internationally. Which is also true for most countries, from Bohemia to Great Britain, from the USA to Japan. However, just as each nation has its own outstanding period, Hungarian photography had its own remarkable phase, from around the mid 1920s and lasting for about a quarter of a century. It was then suddenly (almost unprecedently, we might think), major figures with a major impact on the world’s photography were born among us. Perhaps not all of you are aware of them as Hungarians: yet André Kertész, Brassaï, László Moholy Nagy, Robert Capa and his younger brother Cornell, Martin Munkácsi, Éva Besnyo, Paul Almásy, György Kepes, Ergy Landau, Stefan Loránt and a dozen other well-known photographers are esteemed by us as our own artists.
This is why we wish to open for you an irregular, not in the least conventional, history of Hungarian photography. We will describe and speak to you about all those we can be proud of, tell you where they started from, how they laid down the first steps of the flight of stairs on which they climbed so high. And we will not forget those who followed them, continuing that work or starting something completely different, but unable to avoid their famed predecessors.
This is why Hungarian Photography Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow were prepared, specifically for those interested foreigners with little knowledge of Hungarian photography or Hungarian conditions, to offer a survey and an outline of the main trends.