Inge Morath

**Ingeborg Hermine Morath** (German: [ˈɪŋəbɔrk ˈmoːraːt]; 27 May 1923 – 30 January 2002) was an Austrian photographer. In 1953, she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morath was the third wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller; their daughter is screenwriter/director Rebecca Miller.

## Inge Morath

### Relatives

**Parents:** Mathilde Wiesler and Edgar Morath
**Ex-hsuband:** Lionel Birch
**Parents-in-law:** Augusta Miller, and Isidore Miller,
**Husband:** Arthur Miller
**Children:** Daniel Miller, and Rebecca Miller,
**Sister-in-law:** Joan Copeland
**Sons-in-law:** Daniel Day-Lewis, and Tom Doyle
**Grandsons:** Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, Ronan Day-Lewis, and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis,
**Nephew:** Eric Kupchik

## Early years (1923–1945)

Morath was born in Graz, Austria, to Mathilde (Wiesler) and Edgar Morath, scientists whose work took them to different laboratories and universities in Europe during her childhood. Her parents had converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. First educated in French-speaking schools, Morath relocated in the 1930s with her family to Darmstadt, a German intellectual center, and then to Berlin, where Morath's father directed a laboratory specializing in wood chemistry. Morath was registered at the *Luisenschule* near Bahnhof Friedrichstraße.

Morath's first encounter with *avant-garde* art was the *Entartete Kunst* (Degenerate Art) exhibition organized by the Nazi Party in 1937, which sought to inflame public opinion against modern art. "I found a number of these paintings exciting and fell in love with Franz Marc's *Blue Horse*", Morath later wrote. "Only negative comments were allowed, and thus began a long period of keeping silent and concealing thoughts."

After finishing high school, Morath passed the *Abitur* and was obliged to complete six months of service for the *Reichsarbeitsdienst* (Reich Labour Service) before entering Berlin University. At university, Morath studied languages. She became fluent in French, English and Romanian in addition to her native German (to these she later added Spanish, Russian and Chinese). "I studied where I could find a quiet space, in the University and the Underground stations that served as air-raid shelters. I did not join the *Studentenschaft* (Student Body)."

Toward the end of World War II, Morath was drafted for factory service in Tempelhof, a neighbourhood of Berlin, alongside Ukrainian prisoners of war.

During an attack on the factory by Russian bombers, she fled on foot to Austria. In later years, Morath refused to photograph war, preferring to work on stories that showed its consequences.

## Middle years (1945–1962)

After the war, Morath worked as a translator and journalist. In 1948, she was hired by Warren Trabant, first as Vienna Correspondent and later as the Austrian editor, for *Heute*, an illustrated magazine published by the Office of War Information in Munich. Morath encountered photographer Ernst Haas in post-war Vienna, and brought his work to Trabant's attention. Working together for *Heute*, Morath wrote articles to accompany Haas' pictures. In 1949, Morath and Haas were invited by Robert Capa to join the newly founded Magnum Photos in Paris, where she started as an editor. Working with contact sheets sent into the Magnum office by founding member Henri Cartier-Bresson fascinated Morath. "I think that in studying his way of photographing I learned how to photograph myself, before I ever took a camera into my hand."

Morath was briefly married to the British journalist Lionel Birch and relocated to London in 1951. That same year, she began to photograph during a visit to Venice. "It was instantly clear to me that from now on I would be a photographer", she wrote. "As I continued to photograph I became quite joyous. I knew that I could express the things I wanted to say by giving them form through my eyes." Morath applied for an apprenticeship with Simon Guttman, who was then an editor for *Picture Post* and running the picture-agency Report. When Guttman asked what Morath wanted to photograph, and why, she answered that "after the isolation of Nazism I felt I had found my language in photography." After Morath had spent several months working as Guttman's secretary, she had an opportunity to take photographs. She sold her first photographs - of opening nights, exhibitions, inaugurations, etc. - under the pseudonym "Egni Tharom", her name spelled backwards.

Morath divorced Birch and returned to Paris to pursue a career in photography. In 1953, after Morath presented her first large picture story, on the Worker Priests of Paris, to Capa, he invited her to join Magnum as a photographer. Her first assignments were stories that did not interest "the big boys." She went to London on an early assignment to photograph the residents of Soho and Mayfair. Morath's portrait of Mrs. Eveleigh Nash, from that assignment, is among her best-known works. At Capa's suggestion, in 1953–54, Morath worked with Cartier-Bresson as a researcher and assistant. In 1955 she was invited to become a full member of Magnum Photos. During the late 1950s, Morath traveled widely, covering stories in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the United States, and South America, for such publications as *Holiday*, *Paris Match*, and *Vogue*. In 1955 she published *Guerre à la Tristesse*, photographs of Spain, with Robert Delpire, followed by *De la Perse à l'Iran*, photographs of Iran, in 1958. Morath published more than thirty monographs during her lifetime.

Like many Magnum members, Morath worked as a stills photographer on numerous motion picture sets. Having met director John Huston while she was living in London, Morath worked on several of his films. Huston's *Moulin Rouge* (1952) was one of Morath's earliest assignments, and her first time working in a film studio. When Morath confessed to Huston that she had only one roll of color film to work with and asked for his help, Huston bought three more rolls for her, and occasionally waved to her to indicate the right moments to step in with her camera. Huston later wrote of Morath that she "is a high priestess of photography. She has the rare ability to penetrate beyond surfaces and reveal what makes her subject tick."

In 1959, while photographing the making of *The Unforgiven*, starring Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, and Audie Murphy, Morath accompanied Huston and his friends duck hunting on a mountain lake outside Durango, Mexico. Photographing the excursion, Morath saw through her telephoto lens that Murphy's companion had capsized their boat 350 yd (320 m) from shore. She could see that Murphy was stunned, and the men were struggling. A skilled swimmer, Morath swam out, stripped down and used her bra straps to haul the two men ashore .

## Later years (1962–2002)

Morath married Arthur Miller on 17 February 1962 and relocated permanently to the United States. Miller and Morath's first child, Rebecca, was born in September 1962. The couple's second child, Daniel, was born in 1966 with Down syndrome and was institutionalized shortly after his birth. Rebecca Miller is a film director, actress, and writer who is married to the actor Daniel Day-Lewis.

## Death

Morath Miller died of cancer on January 30, 2002, at the age of 78.

## Honors and legacy

* 1983 State of Michigan Senate Resolution NO 295; Tribute to Inge Morath.[*citation needed*]
* 1984 Doctor Honoris Causa Fine Arts, University of Connecticut, Hartford, US.[*citation needed*]
* 1992 Great Austrian State Prize for Photography.[*citation needed*]
* 2002, members of Magnum Photos established the Inge Morath Award in honor of their colleague as an annual award. It is administered by the Inge Morath Foundation, and is given to a woman photographer under the age of 30, to support her work towards the completion of a long-term project.[*citation needed*]
* 2003, her family established the Inge Morath Foundation to preserve and share her legacy.[*citation needed*]
* Since 2012 Salzburg, Austria has an "Inge-Morath-Platz" in tribute to the photographer. It is also the location of the Fotohof, a photographic institution which has collaborated with her since the beginning of the 1980s

## References

1. ↑ "Inge Morath, Photographer With a Poetic Touch, Dies at 78". *New York Times*. 31 January 2002.
2. ↑ `{{cite book}}`: `|work=` ignored (help)
3. ↑ # "Obituary: Inge Morath". Telegraph.

4. ↑ Morath, Inge. "I Trust My Eyes" (Manuscript for Berlin Lecture), page 4. Unpublished: date unknown. Inge Morath Foundation.
5. ↑ Morath (n.d.) *I Trust My Eyes*, p. 5
6. ↑ Morath (n.d.) I Trust My Eyes, p. 9.
7. ↑ Tulic, Sumeja. "The pioneering legacy of Inge Morath - 1854 Photography". *www.1854.photography*. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
8. ↑ "The Extraordinary Life and Work of 20th-Century Photographer Inge Morath". *AnOther*. Retrieved 27 June 2023.
9. ↑ Morath, Inge. *I Trust My Eyes (Manuscript for Berlin Lecture)*, page 15. Unpublished: date unknown. Inge Morath Foundation.
10. ↑ Andrews, Suzanna (September 2007). "Arthur Miller's Missing Act". *Vanity Fair*. Retrieved 26 December 2010.

## External links

* Official website
* Inge Morath Photographs and Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.