Inge Morath
Inge Morath
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Inge Morath

Ingeborg Hermine "Inge" Morath (née Mörath; Austrian German: [ˈɪŋɛbɔrɡ ˈmoːraːt] ; 27 May 1923 – 30 January 2002) was an Austrian photographer. Joining the Magnum Photos Agency in 1953, Morath became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morath is also known for being was the third wife of the playwright Arthur Miller and the mother of the filmmaker Rebecca Miller.

Morath was born Ingeborg Hermine Mörath on May 27, 1923, in Graz, First Austrian Republic (present-day Austria) to Edgar Mörath [de], a wood scientist, and Mathilde Mörath (née Wiesler), a scientist. Both of Morath's parents had converted from catholicism to protestantism, and she was raised in a liberal protestant household.

First educated in French-speaking schools, Morath relocated in the 1930s with her family to Darmstadt, a German intellectual center. In 1936, the family moved to Berlin where Morath's father directed the Research Institute for Plywood and Wood Products (German: Leitung des Forschungsinstituts für Sperrholz und andere Holzerzeugnisse). Morath was registered at the Luisenschule near Bahnhof Friedrichstraße.

Morath's first encounter with avant-garde art was the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition organized by the Nazi Party in 1937, which sought to inflame public opinion against modern art. "I found a number of these paintings exciting and fell in love with Franz Marc's Blue Horse", Morath later wrote. "Only negative comments were allowed, and thus began a long period of keeping silent and concealing thoughts."

After finishing high school, Morath passed the Abitur and was obliged to complete six months of service for the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service) before entering Humboldt University of Berlin. At university, Morath studied languages. She became fluent in French, English and Romanian in addition to her native German (to these she later added Spanish, Russian and Chinese). "I studied where I could find a quiet space, in the University and the Underground stations that served as air-raid shelters. I did not join the Studentenschaft (Student Body)."

Toward the end of World War II, Morath was drafted for factory service in Tempelhof, a neighbourhood of Berlin, alongside Ukrainian prisoners of war.

During an attack on the factory by Russian bombers, she fled on foot to Austria. In later years, Morath refused to photograph war, preferring to work on stories that showed its consequences.

After the war, Morath worked as a translator and journalist. In 1948, she was hired by Warren Trabant, first as Vienna Correspondent and later as the Austrian editor, for Heute, an illustrated magazine published by the Office of War Information in Munich. Morath encountered photographer Ernst Haas in post-war Vienna, and brought his work to Trabant's attention. Working together for Heute, Morath wrote articles to accompany Haas' pictures. In 1949, Morath and Haas were invited by Robert Capa to join the newly founded Magnum Photos in Paris, where she started as an editor. Working with contact sheets sent into the Magnum office by founding member Henri Cartier-Bresson fascinated Morath. "I think that in studying his way of photographing I learned how to photograph myself, before I ever took a camera into my hand."

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