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== Magnum ==
== Magnum ==
Eisner was one of the founders of [[Magnum Photos]]. In May 1947, [[Robert Capa]] organised a meeting over lunch at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with Eisner and ''LIFE'' magazine's [[William Vandivert|Bill Vandivert]] and his wife, Rita, to establish Magnum Photos, Inc. Though Henri Cartier-Bresson, David ‘‘Chim’’ Seymour, and George Rodger were not told of the meeting, they were nevertheless made Magnum's vice-presidents. The seven members became the original shareholders of Magnum which was to have offices in New York and Paris, to be run respectively by their new president, Rita Vandivert, and secretary and treasurer Maria Eisner. Bill and Rita Vandivert left Magnum in 1948 and Eisner took over as president and director of the New York outlet. When in 1950 a merger was proposed with the New York agency Scope, Eisner balked at the idea and the idea was shelved.<ref name=":3" />
Eisner was one of the founders of [[Magnum Photos]]. In May 1947, [[Robert Capa]] organised a meeting over lunch at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with Eisner and ''LIFE'' magazine's [[William Vandivert|Bill Vandivert]] and his wife, Rita, to establish Magnum Photos, Inc. Though Henri Cartier-Bresson, David ‘‘Chim’’ Seymour, and George Rodger were not told of the meeting, they were nevertheless made Magnum's vice-presidents. On a detour to Paris, Seymour Eisner's telegram: "You are Vice President of Magnum Photos. Detailed letter sent to Paris on May 22nd. I will soon have interesting assignments for you."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Naggar |first=Carole |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1334344766 |title=David 'Chim' Seymour : Searching for the Light. 1911-1956 |date=2022 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-070634-5 |location=München |pages=116 |language=en |oclc=1334344766}}</ref> The seven members became the original shareholders of Magnum which was to have offices in New York and Paris, to be run respectively by their new president, Rita Vandivert, and secretary and treasurer Maria Eisner. Bill and Rita Vandivert left Magnum in 1948 and Eisner took over as president and director of the New York outlet. When in 1950 a merger was proposed with the New York agency Scope, Eisner balked at the idea and the idea was shelved.<ref name=":3" />


After she married Dr. Hans Lehfeldt, Capa took over as president in July 1951,<ref name=":2" /> asking Eisner to leave when she became pregnant with her son Richard.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60402034 |title=Encyclopedia of twentieth-century photography |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |others= |isbn=978-1-57958-393-4 |editor-last=Warren |editor-first=Lynne |location=New York |pages=994-5 |oclc=60402034}}</ref>
After she married Dr. Hans Lehfeldt, Capa took over as president in July 1951,<ref name=":2" /> asking Eisner to leave when she became pregnant with her son Richard.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/60402034 |title=Encyclopedia of twentieth-century photography |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |others= |isbn=978-1-57958-393-4 |editor-last=Warren |editor-first=Lynne |location=New York |pages=994-5 |oclc=60402034}}</ref>

Revision as of 11:39, 23 April 2023

Maria Eisner
Born
Maria Eisner Lehfeldt

(1909-02-08)February 8, 1909
Milan, Italy
DiedMarch 8, 1991(1991-03-08) (aged 82)
United States
OccupationPhotographer

Maria Eisner (Maria Eisner Lehfeldt; February 8, 1909, in Milan, Italy – March 8, 1991, in New York, New York) was an Italian-American photographer, photo editor and photo agent.

Career

From the 1920s, photographers from Germany, but also Hungary, took refuge in Paris, at the same time as the appearance of photographic magazines with a large circulation. The German group Ullstein, in particular, employed photojournalists who, fleeing from Nazism, brought their experience in this field to France.

Maria Eisner studied in Germany and worked for the illustrated press from the age of twenty, was trained by Simon Guttmann,[1] head of the very successful Berlin-based agency Dephot, and her imagery attracted clients including Berlin publisher Martin Hürlimann. She fled Nazi Germany in 1932 to France where before the War she contributed to such journals as Paris Sex-Appeal[2]

Eisner and Charles Rado were founders of the Rapho (1932) and Alliance Photo agencies,[3] and both came from Ullstein, as did Stefan Lorant, based in England, among others. Rapho attracted the great photographers of Eastern Europe, Brassaï, Nora Dumas, Ergy Landau, Ylla, etc. After the war, Raymond Grasset, its new director, expanded the business.

Alliance Photo, founded in 1934 at 26 rue de la Pépinière, brought together Eisner's friends from Studio Zuber; Robert Capa, Pierre Boucher, David Seymour, Emeric Feher, René Zuber and Denise Bellon. Suzanne Laroche and Juliette Lasserre soon joined them. To meet the demands of the press, it uses photographers more focused on current events, Robert Capa, Chim, Cartier-Bresson and a few others including the Japanese Yōnosuke Natori. It is Alliance Photo which in 1936 contributed to Vu Capa's famous seres of a fighter of the Spanish war apparently felled by a bullet.[4] Its clients included Art et Médecine, Arts et Métiers graphiques, Fiat Revue, Le Monde illustré, Paris-Magazine, Pour lire à deux, Visages du monde, Voilà and Vu.[5] Images from Alliance Photo were also distributed internationally and published in the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands due to Eisner sales prowess,[6] and her contacts abroad with agencies such as Black Star in New York or ABC-Press in Amsterdam.[1]

In earlier agencies, photographers would lose the rights to pictures sold to magazines or newspapers, and often had to hand over the negatives as well. At Alliance Photo, Eisner established an indexing system for the long-term conservation of images.[7] Consequently the agency's photographers enjoyed a growing reputation outside France with Bellon, Boucher, Feher and Verger being invited by Beaumont Newhall to participate in a show of European photography in New York.[5] Through Eisner's diligence, collaboration with the Musée de l’Homme (1937–1938) and photographers from Alliance Photo, particularly Verger and Zuber, took on a formal dimension through the design of the new rooms at the museum in which modern photographs showed the objects of anthropological interest in context and in use.[8]

Alliance Photo ceased its activities at the end of the autumn of 1939, as Eisner, a Jew, had to flee Paris at the time of the occupation. Considered a German ally, she was interned in June 1940 in the Gurs camp in the Pyrenees.[5] Liberated in August, she transited via Portugal to emigrate to the United States.[9] where she spent the end of the Second World War. The agency she founded was briefly re-established after the war as A.D.E.P. (Agence de documentation et d’édition photographiques) run by Suzanne and Pierre Boucher.

Magnum

Eisner was one of the founders of Magnum Photos. In May 1947, Robert Capa organised a meeting over lunch at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with Eisner and LIFE magazine's Bill Vandivert and his wife, Rita, to establish Magnum Photos, Inc. Though Henri Cartier-Bresson, David ‘‘Chim’’ Seymour, and George Rodger were not told of the meeting, they were nevertheless made Magnum's vice-presidents. On a detour to Paris, Seymour Eisner's telegram: "You are Vice President of Magnum Photos. Detailed letter sent to Paris on May 22nd. I will soon have interesting assignments for you."[10] The seven members became the original shareholders of Magnum which was to have offices in New York and Paris, to be run respectively by their new president, Rita Vandivert, and secretary and treasurer Maria Eisner. Bill and Rita Vandivert left Magnum in 1948 and Eisner took over as president and director of the New York outlet. When in 1950 a merger was proposed with the New York agency Scope, Eisner balked at the idea and the idea was shelved.[7]

After she married Dr. Hans Lehfeldt, Capa took over as president in July 1951,[6] asking Eisner to leave when she became pregnant with her son Richard.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Vowinckel, Annette (2013). "German (Jewish) Photojournalists in Exile: A Story of Networks and Success". German History. 31 (4): 473–496.
  2. ^ Eisner (1 September 1934). "Le premier frisson d'automne". Paris sex-appeal : le magazine le plus parisien : revue mensuelle 0.
  3. ^ Thomas Michael Gunther, Marie de Thézy, Alliance Photo, agence photographique 1934-1940. Cat. exp, Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, 1988-1989. Paris : BHVP, 1988.
  4. ^ Thézy, Marie de; Nori, Claude (1992). La photographie humaniste : 1930-1960, histoire d'un mouvement en France (in French). Paris: Contrejour. ISBN 9782859491451. OCLC 28189714.
  5. ^ a b c Gunther, Thomas Michael (1996). "Alliance Photo: agence photographique (Paris 1934-1940 et 1944-1946)". Dictionnaire de la photo (in French). Paris: Larousse. p. 27. ISBN 2-03-750014-9. OCLC 409749822.
  6. ^ a b Bair, Nadya (2020). The decisive network Magnum Photos and the postwar image market. Oakland, California. ISBN 978-0-520-97179-0. OCLC 1119742866.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ a b Bouveresse, Clara (2017). Histoire de l'agence Magnum : l'art d'être photographe. Paris. ISBN 978-2-08-139967-9. OCLC 989108493.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Mauuarin, Anais (2022). "Photographers in the Museum: French Anthropology and the Aesthetics of Images (1930-1950". Uméní Art. LXX (3): 290–302 – via Články Articles.
  9. ^ Obituary (The New York Times)
  10. ^ Naggar, Carole (2022). David 'Chim' Seymour : Searching for the Light. 1911-1956. München: De Gruyter. p. 116. ISBN 978-3-11-070634-5. OCLC 1334344766.
  11. ^ Warren, Lynne, ed. (2006). Encyclopedia of twentieth-century photography. New York: Routledge. pp. 994–5. ISBN 978-1-57958-393-4. OCLC 60402034.
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