Never Before Seen In Italy! Venice Photos Shot in 1955 by Inge Morath, Pioneer Photographer, at Palazzo Grimani in Venice

Inge Morath, Venezia, 1955 ©Fotohof archiv/Inge Morath/Magnum Photos

(Venice, Italy) The pioneer female Austrian photographer, Inge Morath, was one of the first girls to play with the boys -- she was one of the first women to gain entrance into the esteemed Magnum Photo agency, an international photographic cooperative owned by its members who are, to this day, mostly men. 

Morath visited Venice in 1951 during her honeymoon with her then-husband, the British journalist, Lionel Birch. She was the daughter of two scientists whose careers transported the family to different laboratories and universities throughout Europe. Her mother had given Morath a camera that had once been screwed to the top of her microscope after she got a new one. Morath dragged the camera around on her travels, but never used it. 

It was raining in Venice during Morath's honeymoon -- the same weather we had at the press conference on January 17 for Inge Morath - Fotografare da Venezia in poi (Photographing From Venice Onward) at Palazzo Grimani, an exhibition that commemorates 100 years since the birth of the artist on May 27, 1923.

"The light was beautiful; the rain had covered everything with a gliss."

Morath was already in the publishing game before she went on her honeymoon, working as a journalist and translator -- she spoke German, English, French, and Romanian fluently, and would later add Spanish, Russian and Mandarin to her repertoire. In 1949, she had been invited to join the newly-formed Magnum Photos agency in Paris as an editor by co-founder Robert Capa, "the greatest combat photographer in history." Her work included writing captions to accompany contact sheets of the elite male photographers in the agency.

But it was on that rainy November day in Venice in 1951 that Inge Morath decided to plunge into the boys' club and become a photographer before she even knew how to use a camera:

"I didn't really know how to use it; it got lost, and yet somehow I always managed to get it back... It was raining in Venice. The light was incredibly beautiful, and suddenly I was convinced of the need to photograph it: someone had to photograph it. I called up a few photographers. No one was interested. Bob Capa in Paris simply said, "Why the hell don't you take a picture yourself, you idiot?"

...It was like a revelation. To realize in an instant what had been simmering away inside you for so long, capturing it the moment it took on the shape I felt was right.

After that, there was no stopping me. I went everywhere, standing on bridges, in church entrances, on corners that looked promising. And then there was no film left. I bought another and decided there and then to become a photographer."

Inge Morath in Connecticut, 1986 - portrait by daughter Rebecca Miller
Photo of image: Cat Bauer

Inge Morath divorced her husband and returned to Paris to pursue her passion. After becoming an associate member of the Magnum Photos agency in 1953, she completed a reportage dedicated to Venice on one of her first assignments as a photographer -- she contributed photos to the illustrated volume Venice Observed, that provocative examination of La Serenissima by American author, Mary McCarthy.

"I am especially interested in photographing in countries where a new tradition emerges from an ancient one. I am more attracted to the human element than the abstract."

In the autumn of 1955, by then a full member of Magnum Photos, Morath returned to Venice on assignment for the art magazine L'Oeil, to take photographs focused on the daily life of the city. She was so enchanted by Venice that she managed to stretch her stay into three months with the help of a painter who found her a cheap place to stay. She roamed the calli and campi, capturing hundreds of images of ordinary Venetians going about their everyday lives -- about 80 photos of the 1955 Venetian series are here in Venice on display. The images were eventually printed as thumbnails onto contact sheets, but were never developed into actual photographs until about 10 years ago. Where were they hiding all that time?

Contact sheet of Inge Morath's first photos taken in 1951 - Photo: Cat Bauer

Enter Kurt Kaindl of the Fotohof gallery and publishing company in Salzburg, Austria, and one of the curators of the exhibition, who had plenty of personal anecdotes about Inge Morath to tell. Kaindl had met Morath when he interviewed her as a journalist for an article, and they became friends and colleagues. Fotohof, which was supported by the Austrian government to encourage photography on a national level, acquired part of her archive. Kaindl happened upon the contact sheets taken in Venice in 1955, and thought they would make an interesting compilation. Before Morath died of cancer on January 30, 2002 at the age of 78, they began the project based on those early Venetian photos that we can witness in Palazzo Grimani today.

Inge Morath, Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits, Nevada, 1960,
©Fotohof archiv/Inge Morath Foundation/ Magnum Photos

Those first photos in Venice were the foundation of a career that spanned the globe -- there are about 200 photos taken over the course of Morath's extraordinary life on the first and second floors of Palazzo Grimani. One of the images of the exhibition that intrigued me the most was the photo that Morath took in 1960 of Marilyn Monroe silently rehearsing her moves on the set of The Misfits, a film written by Monroe's then-husband, the celebrated playwright, Arthur Miller. It took a real woman to capture the real essence of another real woman, concentrating on her work.

Fate?

After meeting Arthur Miller on The Misfit set, Inge Morath would go on to become his third wife -- she married him on February 17, 1962, about a year after his divorce from Marilyn Monroe was finalized on January 20, 1961. Months later, Monroe would die on August 4, 1962.

Inge Morath and Arthur Miller had two children, Rebecca and Daniel, and lived a life in the "rurals" of Connecticut, with neighbors like the sculptor, Alexander Calder. Their daughter, Rebecca Miller, would grow up to become a filmmaker and novelist and Lady Day-Lewis after marrying the acclaimed and elusive actor, Daniel Day-Lewis.

Forgotten Shoes by Inge Morath
Photo of image: Cat Bauer

Inge Morath captured everyday life in Venice in 1955, glimpses of which I was fortunate to witness myself when I moved here in 1998 when there were still elderly women weaving lace in the courtyards and gossiping in the calli and plenty of butchers, cheese vendors and fishmongers selling essentials and school children walking around free, guarded by the watchful eyes of neighbors while the aristocracy got up to their own shenanigans on the Grand Canal. A Venetian colleague said that Morath's photos of what life was once like in Venice made her sad.

Morath never lived to see an exhibition of the 1955 work she did in Venice -- but she can see it now from the heavens. Kurt Kaindl said she would be very happy to have her early work shown in Venice, where the whole thing began.

Inge Morath - Fotografare da Venezia in poi runs from January 18 to June 4 2023 at Palazzo Grimani, a museum house that I have written about before. Go to Palazzo Grimani for more information -- if you can read Italian!

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog