Olga Máté
| Olga Máté | |
|---|---|
1910 portrait by Rudolf Dührkoop
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| Born |
Olga Mauthner 1 January 1878 Szigetvár, Austro–Hungarian Empire |
| Died | 5 April 1961 (aged 83) Budapest, Hungary |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Other names | Olga Zalai, Olga Máté Zalai |
| Occupation | photographer |
Olga Máté (1878-1961) was one of the first women Hungarian photographers, most known for her portraits. She was known for her lighting techniques and utilized lighted backgrounds to enhance her portraits and still life compositions. In 1912 she won a Gold Medal in Stuttgart at an international photography exhibit. Perhaps her best-known images are portraits she took of Mihály Babits and Margit Kaffka. She was also an early suffragist in Hungary and during the Hungarian White Terror assisted several intellectuals in their escapes.
Olga Mauthner was born on 1 January 1878 in Szigetvár, during the Austro–Hungarian Empire to Hanna (née Spiegel) and Lőrinc Mauthner. There were two daughters and four sons in the family and changed their name from the German spelling to the Hungarian form, Máté. Originally Lőrinc Mauthner made his living as a merchant, while his wife did tailoring piecework, but when the family moved to Budapest, the father gave up his trade and opened a sewing factory. There were few business opportunities open to women but Máté studied in Budapest to become a photographer.
In 1899, Máté opened a studio in the central business district of Budapest at #21 Fő utca (Main Street). After working for several years to obtain sufficient capital in 1908, Máté went to Germany to study in Hamburg with Rudolf Dührkoop and with Nicola Perscheid, who at that time was in Berlin. She studied at least two years in Germany and began participating in exhibitions in 1910. Her photographs showed the influence of Dührkoop, as instead of formal settings, her subjects appeared more natural and were placed against lighted backgrounds, to focus the eye on the darker subject of the work. The following year, she exhibited in London at the London Salon of Photography.
Máté returned to Budapest and began working on a variety of subject matter including advertising, nudes, urban landscapes, but by far her most known works were portraits. In 1911 she began contributing to the journal A Fény (The Light). In that year's publication, about half of the photograph's submitted were by four Hungarian photographers, including Máté, Erzsi Gaiduschek, József Pécsi, and Frigyes Widder. In 1912, she opened a studio at #12 Veres Pálné utca, (a street in Budapest named after the educator and feminist Pálné Veres), and lived in an apartment above the studio, located on the building's sixth floor. In the fall of that year, Máté married the philosopher and academic Béla Zalai, a widower with two children. Their home became a meeting place for intellectuals to gather and discuss ideas.
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Wikipedia