Pál Funk, born Pál Pinkász, known professionally also as ''Angelo'', (31 January 1894,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

–13 December 1974, Budapest, Hungary) was a leading twentieth-century photographer in Hungary. He was also a cinematographer and fashion designer.

Early life

He was partly of Italian ancestry, and his family had included many artists. His great-grandfather, Alessandro Angelo, the creator of the frescoes at the

Hofburg The Hofburg is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty. Located in the centre of Vienna, it was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. It also served as the imperial winter residence, as Schönbrunn ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and also, reputedly, designed sets for

Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards f ...

. The artist members of the family adopted the artist name "Angelo" in honor of their famous predecessor. Pal Funk began to take photographs at ten, but his arts studies were not limited to photography: in 1910 he attended Carl Bauer's painting school in Munich and then the Peters photography studio in Hamburg, the Dührkopp-studio in Berlin, in the studios of

Rudolf Dührkoop Rudolf Johannes Dührkoop (1 August 1848, Hamburg – 3 April 1918, Hamburg) was a German portrait photographer; one of the leading early representatives of pictorialism. Biography He was born to Christian Friederich Dührkoop, a carpenter, an ...

and

Nicola Perscheid Nicola Perscheid (3 December 1864 – 12 May 1930) was a German photographer. He is primarily known for his artistic portrait photography. He developed the "Perscheid lens", a soft focus lens for large format portrait photography. Life and care ...

in Berlin, with

Léopold-Émile Reutlinger Léopold-Émile Reutlinger (17 March 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a French photographer who came from a successful German-Jewish family of photographers. His uncle Charles Reutlinger founded the family's photography business, and his father was t ...

in Paris, with Marcus Adams and with E. O. Hoppé in London. He returned home from France in 1914 and then spent four years in the Army during the First World War. His wife, Anna Misley, was a dancer at the Opera House.

Career

Returning home, he began working in the studio of Aladár Székely in Budapest as a first assistant, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, he opened his first studio in 1919 at 14 Vilmos császár út. From 1920 to 1946 his studio was located at Budapest, IV. Váci St. Not long after, he was photographing again in Paris and Nice, and then, until 1938, worked in Paris and Amsterdam, in temporary studios. Among the names he used internationally are P. F. Angelo, Angelo Pál, Paul Angelo, Funk Pál, and Funk Pinkász. In 1923 he also worked in Paris as a fashion- and costume-designer. Between the wars, his work appeared in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harper‘s Bazaar, Cinéma, Die Dame, Berliner Leben, Berliner Zeitung Illustrirte. In 1926 he was made a member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. Amongst those he photographed were

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

Serge Lifar Serge Lifar ( ua, Сергій Михайлович Лифар, ''Serhіy Mуkhailovуch Lуfar'') ( 15 December 1986) was a Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century. No ...

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

Vaslav Nijinsky Vaslav (or Vatslav) Nijinsky (; rus, Вацлав Фомич Нижинский, Vatslav Fomich Nizhinsky, p=ˈvatsləf fɐˈmʲitɕ nʲɪˈʐɨnskʲɪj; pl, Wacław Niżyński, ; 12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a ballet dancer and choreog ...

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and

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

. On the pedagogical side, he gave more than seventy lectures on Hungarian photography, the aesthetics of modern photography, and portrait and nude photography. He was also the chairman of the Master of Photographers Examination Committee. Between 1927 and 1937 he wrote dozens of articles for ''Fotóművészeti Hírek'' (Photography News journal) and from 1934 to 1938 he was one of the editors of the journal ''Magyar Fotográfia'' (Hungarian Photography). During World War II, he was detained by the Gestapo due to his Jewish origins, however, he luckily managed to escape the fate of many other Hungarian Jews.

Filmmaking

He first became involved in film-making during WW1, working with Mihály Kertész (

Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz ( ; born Manó Kaminer; since 1905 Mihály Kertész; hu, Kertész Mihály; December 24, 1886 April 10, 1962) was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed cla ...

) from 1916, and then spent several months a year on the filming of Franco-British Film Co.. He has also worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with such big-name artists as Rex Ingram, Erich Pommer,

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, Alexander Wolkoff,

Ernst Lubitsch Ernst Lubitsch (; January 29, 1892November 30, 1947) was a German-born American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as ...

and Harry Lachman. According to some sources, he shot the first Hungarian sound film. He was also involved in the filming of the first commercial film, in 1927. The cameraman was István Eiben. According to some sources, he worked regularly with motion pictures for seven, others for more than ten years.

Post-WW2 career

In 1945, he launched the ''Angelo Fotó Akadémiát'' (Angelo Photography Academy), to which he sought to invite renowned photographers as tutors. In addition to studio photography, he was also significantly involved in the establishment and operation of professional organizations. After the Second World War, he took part in the operation of the association of Hungarian amateur photographers, MADOME, and in 1956 he was also a founding member of the Association of Hungarian Photographers. His studio was nationalized in 1951, and from then on he worked as a simple skilled worker, a member of the ''Budapesti Fényképész Kisipari Termelő Szövetkezet'' (Budapest Photographer's Small-Scale Production Cooperative) – however in the same premises as his studio. Angelo tried to meet the expectations of the age, he became a ''stakhanovite'' of the cooperative, photographing an estimated 450,000 people during his career. In addition to his work for the cooperative, he photographed more and more for his own pleasure, to satisfy his artistic inclinations. His late images have no living figures, his pictorial world had become surreal and alien.

Retrospectives

* Seelenverwandt. Ungarische Fotografen 1914 - 2003, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 10 Jun – 29 Aug 2005 * Mouvement, rythme, danse - Les débuts de la danse moderne en Hongrie (1902-1950), Institut Hongrois, Paris, 7 Nov – 14 Dec 2013 * Kindred Spirits. Péter Nádas and Hungarian Photography 1912-2003,

Fotomuseum Den Haag The Fotomuseum Den Haag (The Hague Museum of Photography) is a museum in the field of photography in The Hague. The museum was founded in 2002 as part of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag and works closely with the Print Room of the Leiden University Librar ...

, Den Haag, 25 Sep 2004 – 3 Jan 2005,

Early life

Career

Filmmaking

Post-WW2 career

Retrospectives

References

Pictures

Further reading