NICOLAS MULLER (1913-2000) – TRACES OF EXILE
2014-12-22Although little known in France, Nicolás Muller (Orosháza, Hungary, 1913–Andrín, Spain, 2000) was one of the leading exponents of Hungarian social photography. Like many of his compatriots — Eva Besnyö, Brassaï, Robert Capa, André Kertész and Kati Horna — he spent much of his life in exile: born into a bourgeois Jewish family, he left Hungary shortly after the Anschluss in 1938, spending time in Paris, Portugal and Morocco before finally setting in Spain. This experience, and the situations and people he encountered along the way, did much to shape Muller’s work.
Like many of his fellow Hungarian photographers at the time, in the 1930s Muller worked in a humanist, documentary vein, evincing a strong sense of sympathy for the world of labour and the most modest members of society. His interest in the working man’s experience would remain a hallmark of his photographs. As the social and political contexts changed, he photographed agricultural labourers and dockers in the ports of Marseille and Porto, then children and street vendors in Tangiers, and life in the countryside. Later, he photographed cultural and social figures in Madrid.
Opposite – Carénage du navire. Canaries, 1964
Exhibition runs through till May 31st, 2015
Château de Tours
25 avenue André Malraux
37000 Tours
France
