Ata Kandó facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ata Kandó
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Self-portrait, Paris (1935-1937)
Dutch Photo Museum |
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| Born |
Etelka Görög
17 September 1913 |
| Died | 14 September 2017 (aged 103) |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Other names | Etelka Kandó Etelka van der Elsken |
| Occupation | Photographer, humanitarian |
| Spouse(s) | Gyula Kandó (1908-1968)(m. 1931, div. ca. 1950) Ed van der Elsken (m. 1954, div. 1955) |
| Children | 3 |
Ata Kandó (born Etelka Görög; 17 September 1913 – 14 September 2017) was a famous photographer from Hungary and the Netherlands. She started taking pictures in the 1930s, focusing on children. Later, she became a fashion photographer. She also photographed refugees and traveled to the Amazon to capture amazing landscapes and local people.
Ata Kandó received many awards for her work. In 1959, she won a silver medal for fashion photography. In 1991, she got the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal. She also received the Imre Nagy Prize in 1998. That same year, she and her first husband were honored with the Righteous Among the Nations award from Israel. This award recognized them for helping Jewish people during the Holocaust. In 1999, she earned the Hungarian Photographers Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
Contents
Early Life and Art Beginnings
Etelka Görög was born on 17 September 1913 in Budapest. Her family had Jewish heritage. Her father, Imre Görög, was a high school teacher. He also translated Russian books. Her mother, Margit Beke, translated books from Scandinavian languages. She spoke five languages. Etelka's grandfather, Manó Beke, was a well-known mathematician.
When Etelka was a toddler, she couldn't say her own name. She called herself "Ata," and the name stuck. Her parents encouraged her to be an artist. She loved to draw and joined a private art school. There, she met other artists, including Gyula Kandó. She and Gyula got married in 1931. They moved to Paris, France. But they faced money problems and returned to Budapest in 1935. Ata then changed her focus to photography. She studied with several teachers and completed her training.
Photography Career and Helping Others
Ata Kandó and Gyula returned to Paris in 1938. Ata opened a photography studio. She mostly took pictures of children. Her business grew, but in 1940, Germany invaded Paris. This forced them to return to Hungary. In 1941, Ata had a son named Tamás. Two years later, she had twin daughters, Júlia and Magdolna.
During World War II, Ata's parents and sister had to hide because they were Jewish. However, Ata's husband was not Jewish. This gave her some protection, so she could move around more freely. Both Ata and Gyula helped the resistance movement. They even hid fourteen Jewish people in their home.
In one brave act, Ata gave her identity papers to a pregnant Jewish woman. This allowed the woman to go to a hospital to have her baby. After the birth, Ata pretended the baby was hers. She also provided fake papers so the mother could stay with her child. They moved many times to avoid being caught. After the war, Ata and her husband were honored with the Righteous Among the Nations award in 1998. This was for their courage in helping Jewish people during the Holocaust.
In 1947, Ata and her children went back to Paris. She started her photography career again. A famous photographer, Robert Capa, gave her a camera. She also worked at his photography lab until 1952. Her husband went back to Hungary in 1949 to find work. But the "Iron Curtain" was set up, which made it impossible for families to reunite. Ata and Gyula separated. Ata then met and married a Dutch photographer, Ed van der Elsken. They moved to the Netherlands in 1954. But they divorced less than a year later. Ata was now alone in a new country with three children.
She started working as a fashion photographer. She took pictures for famous Dutch and French fashion companies. She also traveled with her children, doing photo shoots in the Alps.
Documenting Refugees
In 1956, Ata Kandó traveled to the border between Austria and Hungary. This was during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She wanted to photograph the refugees who were fleeing. Another photographer, Violette Cornelius, joined her. They flew to Vienna and took pictures of refugee children. They decided that all the money from selling these photos would go to help the refugees.
Their book, called The Red Book because of its cover, was created in just three weeks. It was released by Christmas. The sales raised a lot of money to help those in need. The next year, Ata published Droom in het woud (Dream in the forest). This book showed pictures from her holidays in Switzerland and Austria with her children. Her son, Tamás, who was fourteen, wrote the stories for the dream-like photos.
Ata returned to fashion photography and also taught at a Dutch school. In 1959, she won a silver medal for the best fashion photograph of the year. She also started teaching at the Dutch Academy of Arts in Utrecht.
Exploring the Amazon
In 1961, Ata was invited to visit Caracas, Venezuela. She photographed a fashion model in the jungle. Through a French priest, she was able to fly deeper into the Amazon. There, she took pictures of some of the native people. She went back in 1965 to take more photos of the Amazon landscape and its people. She also photographed Peruvian whalers on this trip.
Her South American photographs were shown in National Geographic magazine. Some of her pictures were bought by the British Museum and private collectors. In 1970, some of these photos were published in a book called A Hold véréből.
In 1979, Ata Kandó moved to Sacramento, California, to be near her son, Thomas. She continued to work and publish photos from the United States for ten years. Her work became more and more recognized during this time. She received the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal in 1991. In 1998, she was awarded the Imre Nagy Prize. That same year, she and her first husband received the Righteous Among the Nations award for saving Jewish people during the Holocaust. In 1999, she received the Hungarian Photographers Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
Later Career and Exhibitions
In 1999, Ata Kandó moved to the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom to be near one of her daughters. In 2001, she returned to the Netherlands and settled in Bergen. In 2003, she published another collection of photos. These were pictures she took of her children on their holidays between 1954 and 1955. This book was originally planned as a follow-up to Droom in het woud. But because Droom wasn't very popular at first, she didn't publish it then. The book was eventually named Kalypso & Nausikaä – Foto's naar Homerus Odyssee.
In 2004, to celebrate her 90th birthday, photos from "The Red Book" were shown in the Netherlands. Two years later, in 2006, Ata had an exhibition with the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin. This show also featured her 1956 photos of refugee children. In 2013, for her 100th birthday, an English and Hungarian version of Dream in the Forest was released. The Hungarian Museum of Photography held a two-month exhibition of her works. The Dutch Photo Museum also had an exhibition of her work in 2014.
Death and Legacy
Ata Kandó passed away on 14 September 2017, just three days before her 104th birthday. She left behind a legacy of powerful and artistic photographs.
