Judit Kárász

Judit Kárász was born in Szeged, Hungary in 1912, where she received her initial training from a local photographer. She later studied at the Ecole de la Photographie in Paris before attending the German Bauhaus, where photography had only recently been added to the curriculum. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, although not a professor of photography, proved to be an influence among young photography students. Kárász studied with Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers, but was most influenced by Walter Peterhans in the photo lab. Peterhans encouraged his students to capture the honest reality of their subjects and to be objective.

Kárász relocated to Berlin in 1932 due to political persecution. In 1933-34 she traveled across Germany, capturing images along the Rhine river. Again, in 1935, Kárász was forced to flee, this time settling on a small island in Denmark. She worked in a weaving shop in Copenhagen, producing private photographs.

After 1949, Kárász was able to return to Hungary, and she became a staff photographer for the Hungarian Museum of Decorative Arts, where she continued to work for 20 years. Ten years after her death in 1977, the Museum honored her posthumously with a retrospective exhibition of her work. Kárász’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; the Berlinische Galerie, Gerrmany; and the Tate St. Ives. Her photographs are included in the collections of the Tate, London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other public art institutions.