Kata Kálmán
Hungarian, 1909–1978
Laci Varga, 4 years old, Budapest (Varga Laci, 4 éves, Budapest), from the series "Tiborc"
INV-2185
Kata Kálmán
Hungarian, 1909–19781931, printed 1955
Laci Varga, 4 years old, Budapest (Varga Laci, 4 éves, Budapest), from the series "Tiborc"
Kata Kálmán Hungarian, 1909–1978 →photographphotography
Date
1931, printed 1955
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 23.2 × 17.3 cm (9 3/16 × 6 13/16 in.); Paper: 24 × 18.1 cm (9 1/2 × 7 3/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Purchased with funds provided by Ashlee Jacob and Martin Modahl; Photography and Media Purchase Fund
By the time this portrait was printed in Kata Kálmán’s 1937 photobook “Tiborc,“ the impoverished subject with a crust of bread had starved to death. “Tiborc,“ named after the oppressed peasant character in József Katona’s 1815 play “The Viceroy,“ collected 24 of Kálmán’s portraits of rural Hungarians, along with biographies written by Kálmán’s husband, writer Ivan Balthazar. While many photobooks of the time focused on ordinary working people, this was the only one to name its subjects and tell something of their life stories. In the case of Laci, Balthazar poignantly commented that the short text also served as the boy’s obituary.
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