Folia historica 27

III. MŰHELY - Cs. Lengyel Beatrix: Robert Capa fotográfiái a MNM Történeti Fényképtárában

ROBERTCAPA PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE HISTORICAL PHOTO DEPARTMENT OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM Summary There are a number of Hungarians among the most renowned photograhers of world: André Kertész, Brassaí, Martin Munkácsi, Robert Capa - just to name but the most famous. Among them, Robert Capa was considered one of the greatest war photographers of all times already in his lifetime. During the 1990s, Richard Wheelen and Cornell Capa, working for the International Center of Photography (ICP), an institute safeguarding Robert Capa's photographic legacy, made three master selections of the same enlargements to represent Capa's oeuvre. Negotiations to purchase Master Selection III were initiated by László Jakab Orsós, at that time director of the Hungarian Cultural Center New York, in connection with the Hungarian cultural events in New York. Supported by the extra budget from the Hungarian cultural administration, and relying on the professional recommendation of art historian Csilla Csorba and historian of photography Károly Kineses, the Hungarian National Museum purchased this master selection and 48 contemporary press prints at the turn of 2008/2009. The paper presents and evaluates the series from the accepting collection's viewpoint first, gives an outline of the process of the purchase, and describes its placing into the International Collection of the Historical Photo Department of the Hungarian National Museum. It features the first presentations of the collection in Hungary: National Museum, March 2009, Elő/Kép (curator: Beatrix Lengyel and Etelka Baji; exhibition of the HNM at the Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art, July-October 2009, Robert CAPA (curator: Lívia Páldi); the exhibitions all around the country (in eleven towns, different smaller selections; curators: Etelka Baji, Eva Fisli, Marianna Kiscsatári, Beatrix Lengyel), as well as two exhibitions abroad: Shanghai, 2009, as part of the programme Art Forum Hungary (curator: Beatrix Lengyel), and in the Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna in 2010, as part of the Night of Museums (curator: Etelka Baji). The designs of the exhibitions were made by Andrea Bak, head of the HNM's group of exhibition installations; the construction was in every case done by the group of exhibition installations. The paper describes the related publications, as well as the bilingual (English, Hungarian) book of studies: ROBERT CAPA így készül a történelem/ History in the Making, published by the Hungarian National Museum (Ed. Lívia Páldi). In connection the purchase, the paper draws the attention to the tasks ahead of researchers, and to the possibilities of further research. For example to the sociological study of the successes of the world-famous Hungarian-born photographers, to the possibilities of further archival research, as well as to the support of today's young and talented photographers. The paper draws the conclusion that the exhibitions in Budapest and in the country aroused new interest in photography; not only in photography as a form of art, but also as a historical source, and in outstanding figures of Hungarian photography. All this indicates that the purchase was reasonable, and the careful and professional work 241