Ervin Marton's Official Website

Photographer-Artist

Like his other Hungarian friends and colleagues, Brassai, Kertész, Feher, Hervé, Rédner & Révai, Ervin Marton made his mark through photography.

After taking part in WWII’s French Résistance in Paris, he became the chronicler of French society, from its streets to the richness of its cultural life.
Often inspired by Atget, his photographs seem to infuse into the social fabric a form of poetic realism – his own contribution to the “Humanist Photography” movement of Post-War France.

His work is in the Budapest National Gallery, the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, the Wells-Fargo and other collections in the U.S.

Budapest 1912- Paris 1968

A photographer and an artist with an extensive graphic, painting, and sculpture œuvre, Ervin Marton specialized both in street photography and in portraits, capturing much of post-war French cultural life.

Some of the luminaries he photographed include Picasso, Cocteau, Chagall, Camus, as well as Chaplin and Louis Armstrong, along with Gaston Bachelard, Paul Léautaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jacques Prévert, Yves Montand, Juliette Gréco, Foujita and many others.

He was born in Budapest, Hungary, moved to France in 1937 and when the war broke out, as part of the FTP-MOI, joined the French Resistance.

His work is in the collections of Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the National Gallery in Budapest and the Wells Fargo Collection in St. Louis.

Various navigation systems to appear Soon IN RED

Photo

A TEXT DESCRIBING HIS PHOTOGRAPHY WORK WILL APPEAR HERE IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

A PHOTO INTRO

Art

With a training in graphic arts, painting and sculpture, Marton has produced a rich and diverse artistic œuvre. The last time part of that body of work was seen was at the National Gallery in Budapest, Hungary during the 1971 retrospective. This site will slowly display more and more of these works.

PLACEHOLDER

Exhibits &
Publications

His work continues to be exhibited and published. Some of recent highlights include a two-story self-portrait on the royal palace in Budapest, Hungary and the cover for Sartre’s updated English translation of Being and Nothingness.

PLACEHOLDER

What They Wrote

Every photograph by Marton, ironic at times but always moving, is an authentic stance.
A compelling necessity to commune with beings and things.
(Chaque photographie de Marton, parfois ironique, toujours émouvante, est une véritable prise de position.
Une impérieuse nécessité de communion avec les êtres et les choses.)
— LES LETTRES fFRANÇAISES —

“Among the masters of photography”
— Georges Boudaille

“These images we call photographs but that are so much more…
Why take a picture in appearance as banal a subject as a mourning covering by the entrance of a low-income housing?
Well! Because what our two eyes perceive quite frequently, Marton’s third eye has seen it more profoundly and so it seems more singularly, since after contemplating this image we are tempted to know what this covering and the facade conceal in tragedy and humanity“
– Albert Marencin

“Cut out to be a virtuoso of reporting and the camera“
– Daniel Masclet (Groupe des XV)

“To Ervin, as a friendly souvenir – à Ervin, en souvenir amical”
Jean Cocteau
Poet- writer – filmmaker – artist

“an extraordinary poetry and quality – une qualité et une poésie extraordinaire”
Marta Gili
Jeu de Paume Museum Former Director – Ancienne Directrice du Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris

“The champ of black and white/
L’as du noir et blanc.”
Blaise Cendrars
Poet – Writer

Seems to be thinking with his lens… never parts from the most astonisning simplicity,,, the most characteristic details… the innermost precision of the whole complex.,.. and shows something very remarkable where you nad never noticed anything. — LOUIS CHERONNET

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William S. Rubin, Director Emeritus of MoMA’s Department of Painting and Sculpture at the time of his (1996) Picasso and Portraiture exhibition, wrote in a private letter that Ervin Marton’s portrait of Picasso was the best one he had ever seen. He featured it in the entrance hall and as the frontispice of the published book/catalog.

Ervin Marton by his friend, Adolfo Kaminsky (courtesy Sarah K.)

[“My father and your father met just after the war, in a small cantine at 60 rue Claude Bernard in Paris, which was frequented by former members of the resistance networks. It was the time when the survivors returned to the Hotel Lutetia.

During the war, they never met, because the networks were compartmentalized, for security reasons. But according to my father, there were contacts between the various forgery labs. They used to write to each other in friendly ink, giving each other their chemical formulas, etc.” Thanks to Sarah K.]