Driving for Deco is taking a brief intermission from our posts on the 17th World Congress on Art Deco© to highlight an exhibit currently at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY – American, Born Hungary.

“American, Born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy examines the pioneering artistry that emerged out of the backdrops of persecution and perseverance. The exhibit follows a remarkable number of émigrés and exiles from Hungary to Berlin and Paris, and then on to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, where they reinvented themselves and American photography. More than 150 stunning and surreal photographs capture the unexpected beauty of fleeting shadows, gritty urban life, glamorous celebrities, and the promise of America. Included are works by such notable artists such as André Kertész, György Kepes, László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi, and Nickolas Muray.” – Exhibit Brochure

I had originally planned to see this exhibition in Virginia in the autumn of 2024. But later, I learned that it would be traveling to the George Eastman Museum in Rochester in 2025. And this which meant I could simply wait and catch it right where I work. It is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Alex Nyerges, director and CEO of VMFA, in collaboration with Károly Kincses, founding director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography. The exhibition has been on view since late September and will close on March 1, 2026.

I attended the opening preview party back in September and fully intended to return later to experience it at a more leisurely pace. As time began to run out, a very cold, snowy Saturday morning in January finally provided the opportunity.

Featuring over 150 photographs, the exhibition traces the photographers’ journeys from their native Hungary across Europe and on to the United States, from the 1920s through the 1960s. For this post, I’ve chosen a selection of favorite images from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Itt a Balaton!, collage with gelatin silver prints and gouache, by the married artistic team of Imre Révész (1895–1975) and Irma Biró (dates unknown–1944).

Révész began his career as a war photographer before opening a portrait studio in the 1920s. Soon after, the couple expanded into advertising photography. Their early work was influenced by the soft-focus landscapes associated with the “Hungarian style,” but by the late 1920s they embraced collage and abstraction.

The pair divorced in 1934, after which Révész moved to the United States, where he continued a successful career in fashion and advertising photography. Despite the divorce, he continued to sign his work as “Révész–Biró,” possibly as an homage to Biró, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.

Three of the most compelling photographs on view from the Bauhaus years are cameraless images, or photograms, by László Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946). Although the photogram process predates the 1839 introduction of photography, its use as a means of producing abstract imagery emerged in the 1920s.

Several artists—including Man Ray, Christian Schad, and El Lissitzky—have laid claim to reinventing the process. Moholy-Nagy’s wife Lucia, however, defended her husband’s role in its 1922 reinvention. He is widely credited with naming the process “photogram”.

 

Moholy-Naigy, along with his wife Lucia Moholy, began creating photograms around 1922. An object is placed directly onto light-sensitive photographic paper and exposed to light—such as the antique postal scale seen in Untitled (1929. This produces an image without the use of a camera. These works are among the finest examples of Modernist abstraction in photography.

I really love these photographs. As I’ve gotten older (or just old), I’ve grown to appreciate the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s more and more. But the next section of American, Born Hungary, was easily my favorite—and you’ll know why.

The New York section presents a mix of published photographs alongside more intimate snapshots taken by these émigrés.

Above is a group of four photographs by John Albok (1894 – 1982). Clockwise from top left

• Mischief Makers – July 4, Central Park, 1945
• Fifth Avenue, NYC, Depression, Forsake, 1933
• City Fruit Garden, 1934
• Raining, 1938

 

Bill Robinson at a Baseball Game in Harlem, 1936

Lucien Aigner (1901–1999) photographed the dapper Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949) attending a New York Giants game at the Polo Grounds. Robinson is widely regarded as one of the greatest tap dancers of all time. He is best remembered today for his famous stair-dancing routine with Shirley Temple.

Kertész considered Lost Cloud a something as a self portrait. He and his wife came to New York in 1936 by the promise of a lucrative fashion photography contract. The contract fell through soon after their arrival in America. While Kertész struggled to find work, he saw this solitary cloud passing by the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. Later recalling the cloud he remarked that he was “very touched” because it “did not know which way to go.”

The exhibition also features photographs of famous figures from the 1920s–1940s, capturing the public faces of the era.

I want to end this post with a group of four photographs by György Kepes from the late 1930s.  Kepes was teaching at the Institute of Design (the New Bauhaus) when these images were made, While there he was actively developing his concept of integrated design—bringing together art, craft, and technology in what he called “the education of vision.”

Clockwise from the left

• Untitled (Photograph for Direction Magazine), 1939
• Chicago, 1937
• Untitled, 1939
• Target and Cone, ca. 1939

If you happen to find yourself in Rochester before March 1, I highly recommend stopping in to see this terrific exhibition. It will not disappoint.

Anthony (one half of the Freakin’, Tiquen Guys)