Etel Mittag-Fodor (1905–2005) is among those Bauhaus students whose photographs are still largely unknown – despite the fact that these very high-quality works evoke a great deal about the spirit of her times and her very individual sense of humour in both their composition and their visual language. The project of publishing the work of Mittag-Fodor and her virtually exemplary biography as an exile is of special importance to the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.
Etel came to the Bauhaus Dessau in 1928, following her training as a graphic artist. After completing the preliminary course of Josef Albers, she entered the printing and advertising workshop and, from 1929 onwards, attended Walter Peterhans’s photo class. By 1930, when she left the Bauhaus to establish herself as a photographer in Berlin, she had created numerous still lifes and portraits. In the years that followed, the stations of her life led through Budapest to a stay in Moscow and finally to her emigration to South Africa, where she continued to work as a photographer and weaver to a very advanced age, fully in keeping with her motto: ‘I absolutely wanted to make something of my life.’
On the occasion of the European Photography Month, the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin is presenting a studio exhibition from 23.10. until 24.11.2014 with selected photographs by Bauhaus member Etel Mittag-Fodor (1905–2005). With her still lifes and portraits, she is one of the Bauhaus’s most important photographers. To coincide with the exhibition, her memoirs with commentary are being published for the first time, as the third volume in the series "Bauhaus Members: Documents from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin".
More information at www.mdf-berlin.de
Etel Mittag-Fodor, "Not an Unusual Life, for the Time and Place", ed. by Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (Bauhäusler.Dokumente aus dem Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Bd. 3), Berlin 2014, ca. 14 €.