Pictures from the black box – hiding photos of Judit Kárászare displayed in 2B Galery in Budapest (47 Ráday Str., distr. IX.) until December 23.

Little is known about Judit Kárász’s outstanding work as a sociophotographer; however, her legacy and artwork is constantly reidiscovered, providing more and more pieces from her career.

Judit Kárász (1912-1977) was born to a wealthy (bank owner) and well- educated Jewish family in Szeged on 21 May, 1912. After graduating from high school in 1930 she set out to study photography in Paris. She majored in photography in the Bauhaus school of Dessau between 1931 and 1932 whre she attended the classes of Vasily Kandinsky. 

She took social documentary photographs in Szeged, its neighbouring areas and at the farms of the countryside. Her recordings can be considered to be the first major study pertaining to her hometown and lifestyle of the peasantry on the countryside. Her compositions carry a significant amount of Bauhaus-effect in them: bold and constructivist photographic form, materiale depiction, diagonal photo structure, light and shadow effect, and total photographic direction that is tilted or can be viewed from above.

Similarly to other young artists of the Dessau School of Arts, she also became a member of the Kommunistische Studenten Fraktion (Kostufra), which got her expelled from the school. She was an employee of the DEPHOT photo agency between 1932 and 1935 where she worked together with her fellow countryman Endre Friedmann later gaining world-fame by the name Robert Capa. She was a freelancer photographer in Berlin and in Cologne. In 1935 she moved to Denmark to escape the grasp of the Nazi Germany, she lived on the island of Bornholm for ten years, which was followed by a five year period of being a manual weaver in Copenhagen. In December of 1949 she permanently relocated to Hungary. She worked as a photographer of the National Center of Museums and the Museum of Applied Arts until her retirement.

In 1960 she was admitted to the Alliance of Hungarian Photographers. Her workplace responsibilities did not allow her to fully immerse herself in her artistic photography.

Her memorial plaque can be found at Feketesas Street 20.

More information: https://mazsihisz.hu/hirek-a-zsido-vilagbol/kultura/kepek-a-fekete-dobozbol-karasz-judit-rejtozo-fotografiai

Source of the photo: István Tóth (ed.) 2014. A szegedi zsidóság és a fotográfia (Bäck Manci, Kárász Judit, Liebmann Béla, Müller Miklós). Múzeumi Tudományokért Alapítvány Szeged