An exploration of the surprisingly large number of world-famous and influential photographers originally from Hungary: very many of them were Jewish.
Colin Ford CBE was deputy curator of the National Film & Television Archive (1965-72), the first senior curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery, London (1972-82) and founding head of the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (now the National Science and Media Museum), Bradford. After a decade there, he became the Director of the ten National Museums & Galleries of Wales (1993-98).
Colin became involved with Hungarian photography when he curated the first exhibition in Britain of André Kertész (Serpentine Gallery, 1979) followed by The Hungarian Connection (NMPFT 1987). The most recent of his Hungarian exhibitions was the first photography show ever originated by London’s Royal Academy, the very successful Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century. This lecture is largely drawn from that and its catalogue.
JW3 is delighted to be in partnership with YIVO. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Their public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend their global outreach and enable them to share their vast resources. The YIVO Archive contains more than 23 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for such study in the world.
