The emotional photos of Kati Horna and Margaret Michaelis, the eyes of the libertarian utopia, were rescued in Amsterdam in 2016
If Robert Capa and Gerda Taro were the notaries at the front in the Spanish Civil War, Kati Horna and Margaret Michaelis were at the red rear. The images of these photographers of Jewish descent from Hungary and Poland, devoted to anarchism, their collectivizing utopia and anti-fascism, slept the sleep of the righteous for decades. Until they were rescued from the famous 48 boxes sent to Amsterdam by the FAI and the CNT to protect their history by understanding that the war was lost.
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts now houses in the rooms of the National Chalcography, in PHotoEspaña and next to Goya’s war prints, the exhibition that highlights images that testify to the euphoria before a libertarian revolution in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia that would not be successful. According to Almudena Rubio, curator of ‘The Amsterdam Boxes: Kati Horna and Margaret Michaelis in the Civil War’, the bulk of the work of some female reporters in Spain will be on display for the first time, ‘essential for understanding contemporary history’. and photography’. ‘, on account until July 24.
Margaret Michaelis (Dziedzice, 1902-Melbourne, 1985) and Kati Horna (Budapest, 1912-Mexico, 2000) put their view and work at the service of anarchism during the war. His photographs of peasants, militias and workers proud of their new life did not fall into Franco’s hands and did not disappear during his bombing raids. They were kept at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, along with the rest of the material sent there by the CNT-FAI. They remained invisible in the Netherlands until 2016, when the file was inventoried and published. A task performed by Almudena Rubio, art historian and researcher at the Dutch center.
Among more than 5,000 negatives and 2,000 positives, Rubio identified the 35 millimeter celluloids from Michaelis’ Leica, who had been based in Barcelona since 1933 and worked for the CNT-FAI at the start of the war. Also the half-thousand 6×6 negatives of Kati Horna’s Rolleiflex camera, which arrived in anti-fascist Barcelona in January 1937 and was the official photographer for the anarchists’ foreign propaganda offices.
Thanks to Rubio’s work, the unpublished legacy of these dedicated photographers “who did not hesitate to put their cameras at the service of the social revolution promoted by the anarchists” is showcased. There are more than a hundred photographs, including originals of the time and modern copies, focusing on a proletariat “excited and happy to take control of their lives.”
They are displayed next to one of the 48 boxes, perhaps containing guns, in which they were kept containing documents from the anarchists to protect their memories. In addition, a film fragment is projected for the first time, possibly filmed at the front of Aragón and also found in the boxes in Amsterdam.
The exhibition begins with the outbreak of the war and the social revolution in Barcelona, in a section dedicated to Michaelis, and his photographs in Barcelona, Huesca and Valencia. Horna takes the witness with him with his snapshots of Barcelona and the Aragón front, taken during the seven months he worked for the anarchists, until his transfer to Valencia in July 1937.
PHotoEspaña claims the value of the work of both saving and publishing their legacy. “Together, they offer us an unusual view of the war and document the revolutionary experience of anarchists in their quest to fight fascism and build a new society,” summarizes the curator.
Margarethe Gross studied photography in Vienna and opened a studio in Berlin in 1932. She married Rudolf Michaelis, an anarcho-syndicalist with whom she arrived in Republican Barcelona in 1933 fleeing the Nazis, and where she had two photo studios under the name Foto-Elis.
At the outbreak of war, with his Leica, he portrayed first the revolutionary zeal and then the collectivized rearguard who traveled to Aragon and Valencia together with Emma Goldman, an anarchist leader who was proclaimed by the United States as the most dangerous libertarian activist in the world. His photos were published in newspapers such as ‘Solidaridad Obrera’, ‘L’Espagne Antisfaciste’, the magazines ‘Umbral’ and ‘Mujeres Libres’ and anarchist propaganda albums.
Katalin Deutch Blau belonged to a Jewish family in Budapest. She was active in the Hungarian left-wing movement, was a friend of Robert Capa and married fellow photographer Paul Partos. In 1929 they moved to Berlin and with the rise of Hitler they returned to Budapest and then traveled to Paris, where they survived Kati’s reports on markets and cafes. In January 37 she travels to Barcelona. As Catalina Polgare, she worked as an official photographer for the CNT-FAI and founded the Spanish photo agency (Photo SPA), of which she would become the principal photographer. He traveled to Xàtiva, Silla, Vélez Rubio, Gandía, Alcázar de San Juan, Madrid, Alcalá de Henares and Teruel to return to Barcelona in January 1938. In the magazine ‘Umbral’ she met her second husband, the Andalusian artist and anarchist José Horna, with whom she went into exile in Mexico in 1938. Settled in Colonia Roma, they would have their only daughter, Norah Horna, who devoted her entire life to photography under the name of Catalina Fernández.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
