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141013: Wien Museum Karlsplatz: Edith Tudor-Hart: In the shadow of dictatorships
Wien Museum Karlsplatz
Edith Tudor-Hart: In the shadow of dictatorships
26.09.2013 – 12.01.2014
Against the tide
By Susanne Rohringer
The Wien Museum Karlsplatz is currently presenting a solo exhibit of the Austro-British photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (1908 – 1973), who, as a young woman in the 1920s and 30s, created a social-critical photographic documentation about the misery of the Viennese proletariat.
What is amazing about this artist is her extraordinary eye for composition, moment and motion. The misery among the unemployed in the First Republic, their protests and their helplessness are the driving force of these early photographs. Tudor-Hart, formerly Edith Suschitzky, understood photography as a media for enlightenment, as a medium for agitation and as a political weapon. Born 1908 in Vienna into a Jewish and social democrat family, she studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau where she learned the skills of photography and accentuated her visual talent. Upon her return to Vienna, she worked as a freelance photographer, provided several magazines with her photos and was arrested in May 1933. Tudor-Hart had come into conflict with the Dollfuß regime. Accustomed to the liberal and red Vienna, in 1933 – 34, the Christian Social Party came to power and countered all political opponents with crude force. During the 1930’s, Tudor-Hart had been recruited by the Comintern as an informant. At what time she joined the communist party is unclear.
Immediately after the February-battles, Tudor-Hart left Austria and went to England. She had married the British physician Alexander Tudor-Hart and was now a British citizen. She continued to work as a photographer and, among others, took shots of the slums in London (“Girls in front of a bakery”). She took pictures of the Caledonian Market in London and the miners in South Wales. And she continued her activities as a secret agent in England. She organized conspirative meetings that aimed at fighting fascism. And although these were not large-scale activities, they will have an unpleasant influence on her later life.
In 1936, her son Tommy was born. At this time her marriage with Tudor-Hart had already broken up. She was a single parent – which became increasingly difficult, also because Tommy had autistic disorders. She continued to work as a photographer and published her work in the Picture Post and the Listener. She never had enough money and Tudor-Hart partly had a very difficult time.
After the end of the war, disappointed by the failed political hopes and also by Stalin’s policies, Tudor-Hart yet again became a pawn in the hand of world politics. Now was the time of the Cold War. M!5 approached her when Kim Philby was unmasked. She was exposed to house searches and questionings and she was told to stop working as a photographer. She now started to take photographs of children dancing and visit schools for children with special needs. The new socialist spirit is mirrored in these images. At the same time, these are fantastic studies of children in motion. Tudor-Hart shifted her selection of motives to so-called “apolitical topics”, which, however, remained to be highly political. Sometime in the 50’s she stopped working as a photographer. Hard pressed by the British secret service and with a seriously ill child she started to work in various jobs.
She died in England in 1973. Her brother, Wolfgang Suschitzky, who had become a well-known documentary film cameraman, took care of her legacy. Together with Duncan Forbes, who used to work for the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, they made this unusual exhibition in the Wien Museum possible.
Wien Museum Karlsplatz
1040 Vienna, Karlsplatz
Tel: +43 1 5058747-0
Fax: +43 1 5058747-7201
http://www.wienmuseum.at
Opening Hours: Tue - Sun 10.00-18.00 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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141013
Wien Museum
1040 Wien, Karlsplatz
Tel: +43 1 5058747-0, Fax: +43 1 5058747-7201
http://www.wienmuseum.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 09-18, Sa, So 10-18 h
Wien Museum
1040 Wien, Karlsplatz
Tel: +43 1 5058747-0, Fax: +43 1 5058747-7201
http://www.wienmuseum.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 09-18, Sa, So 10-18 h
