Martin Munkacsi and Action Fashion

Lucile Brokaw on Long Island Beach, 1933. By Martin Munkacsi.

Without Martin Munkacsi, fashion photography could have been a boring medium. In the 1920s and 30s, Munkacsi's dynamic shooting style caught the increasing speed and vitality of modern life. His photographs were integral to the development of action photography, and gave fashion its first glimpse at photographs that showed the synergy between clothing, body, and motion.

In the early 1930s, he began shooting for Harper's Bazaar, the results of which are now on display at the International Center of Photography in NYC. The exhibition "Martin Munkacsi: Think While You Shoot" is up until April 29th. A comprehensive grouping of his work, we see his optimism and joy at the modern age gradually sink into darker, probing images that, by the 1940s, question humankind. Also on display are two other exhibitions for the fashion scholar - Henri Cartier-Bresson's scrapbook and Louise Brooks and the "New Woman" in Weimar cinema.

ICP Museum Gallery
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
www.icp.org

Sarah Scaturro