Cserhalmi Zoltán - Kelemen István: Arrabona - Regionális Tudományos Évkönyv 53-56. (Győr, 2018)
Tanulmányok - Szalai Zsolt: Életút és életmód - Mithay Antal fényképei
ARRABONA 2015-2018. 53-56. TANULMÁNYOK Walk and way of life. The photographs of Antal Mithay This study surveys the photographic legacy of Antal Mithay kept at the Rómer Flóris Museum in Győr, the special value of which is the photographer’s brief but exact notes to each of his photos. These notes place the photographer’s works into biographical and micro-historical context. The photographs bear witness of not only Mithay’s life conditions but also of the events, the social, cultural and sport life of Győr and also its infrastructural development during the period between the two World Wars. He was born under the name Antal Heppner in Pozsony (today: Bratislava, Slovakia). First, he was a teacher in Nagyszeben (today: Sibiu, Romania) and after the First World War he moved to Győr with his family. There he worked as a teacher at the Royal Hungarian State Arch-Grammar School of Győr and in 1939 he was honoured by the tide of the honorary headmaster of his school. In addition to teaching he was active as a member and office-holder of several professional and scientific societies. His work as a photographer has received little attention up till today, although he was one of the first photographers in Hungary to experiment with taking colour photographs. The negatives having been taken on gelatinous dry plates and his gelatinous silver paper positive pictures occupying 14 numbered albums (altogether 2348 photographs) document the events of Antal Mithay’s life from 30th June 1911 to 19th June 1938. The supplementing and explanatory medial discussion of the photographs and the written notes is to provide valuable information not only to the history of photography in Győr, but also to the local historical researches. His photographs having been taken in his period in Győr document the events of the local religious life, the natural environment of the city and its surroundings, the building of its bridges and streets and the events of the scout movement at schools. Zsolt Szalai 334
