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Morath, Inge

Austrian, 1923-2002

BiographyInge Morath was an exceptional figure for her talents both as a writer and a photographer. Born in Graz, Austria, Morath studied languages as a university student. Following World War II, she worked as a journalist for Heute, a magazine published out of Munich, and she went on to become their Austrian editor. After encountering the photographs of Ernst Haas, she brought him in as a contributor and the two began to work together, with Morath writing articles to pair with his images. In 1949, Robert Capa invited Haas to join the recently established Magnum Photos and offered her a position as an editor. Morath began taking photographs herself in 1951 while living in London, and two years later, Capa offered her a new role in the agency as a photographer. From 1953 to 1955, she worked as an assistant to Henri-Cartier Bresson, at which point she became a full member of Magnum.

While being a Magnum member, Morath traveled widely in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East on self-directed assignments, creating lyrical photographs founded on a deep sense of humanism. She also photographed on the sets of film productions in this capacity, and she met playwright Arthur Miller while working on John Huston's The Misfits, for which Miller had written the screenplay. The two were married in 1962 and Morath relocated to New York. Morath traveled less frequently during the later decades of her life, but she and Miller collaborated on book projects in the USSR and China, in 1969 and 1979, respectively. In this capacity, Morath reversed the roles from early career as a writer at Heute, contributing the photographs to join with Miller's text. Nevertheless, she continued to be an avid writer throughout her life, even as she pursued photography as her primary means of expression. Morath is also known for her portraits of artists and writers, of which she made hundreds, beginning in the 1950s.