MUNKACSI, Martin. Nudes by Munkacsi. New York: Greenberg, 1951.

(MUNKACSI, Martin).
Nudes by Munkacsi.
New York: Greenberg, 1951.

4to (304 × 228 mm), pp.80. Black-and-white photographs. Text by John Rawlings. Plain endpapers. Red cloth-covered boards, titles to spine and front in silver. Black-and-white photo-illustrated dust-jacket designed by Alexey Brodovitch; wear to edges, head of spine and corners chipped, two tape repairs to verso, crease to rear flap, price-clipped. A near-fine copy in a very good dust-jacket.

First edition. Martin Munkacsi, New York’s leading fashion photographer during the 1930s and 1940s, was born in 1896 in Koloszsvar, Hungary. He moved to Berlin in 1927, and immigrated to the United States in 1934 where he signed an exclusive contract with Harper's Bazaar, then edited by Carmel Snow and art directed by Alexex Brodovitch. Munkacsi pioneered a highly active style, often shooting on the street, and was a major influence on the next generation of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon.

Cartier-Bresson later recalled: 'In 1932, I saw a photograph by Martin Munkacsi of three black children running in to the sea, and I must say that it is that very photograph which was for me the spark that set fire to the fireworks... and made me realize that photography could reach eternity through the moment. There is in that image such intensity, spontaneity, such joy of life, such a prodigy, that I am still dazzled by it even today.'