Kati Horna

Kati Horna was born in Hungary in 1912 during an unstable sociopolitical period; as a result of the First World War, Budapest - where Horna grew up - suffered severe economic setbacks which continued in the years between the wars.[5] Horna was born to an upper-middle-class Jewish family. [6]

Her father was a banker from the prosperous part of Buda[7] and when he died, photography offered Horna the means to earn a living and the chance to fulfill her political ideals.[8] The surrounding violence, danger and injustice of that time influenced her ideology profoundly.

As a teenager, Horna lived in Berlin, where she met Bertolt Brecht and was influenced by Bauhaus, Surrealism, and Constructivist Lajos Kassak, whose views on photography as an agent of social change aligned with Horna's ideology. There was also a big influence when it came to Horna’s ideology and that was Karl Korsch, who trained her in radical politics, which added to her love for narrative photography. [9] [10]

At the age of twenty, Horna became an apprentice in the workshop of a renowned photographer József Pecsi. At this most prestigious school in Budapest, she learned basic photographic techniques.[7] She met Robert Capa (then by the name Endre Friedmann) as a teenager in Budapest, and the two photographers remained friends until Capa's death in 1954.[7] Some of the wars that Capa himself was able to capture included the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. [11] While Capa had his lens focused on the action-packed battlefront, the more reserved Kati took compassionate, visionary picture of those affected by the war, capturing the resilience of women under siege. [12] Capa favored working at the front lines of the War; capturing shots such as Falling Soldier [1936]. [13] Horna and Capa were part of the same left-wing political movement and photographed each other's portraits.[14] When Capa moved to Paris, she followed him in 1933, where she turned her attention to the life she saw around her in the streets and cafés of the French capital. Her series Reportage dans les Cafés de Paris (1934) captured her brilliant eye for irony and fun.[13][8] while she did several reportages for the French Agence Photo. Her widely known series Flea Markets (1933) and Reportage dans les Cafes de Paris (1934) are from this period. Besides photographing realistic scenes, she also ventured into more experimental works, closer to Surrealism. Even though Horna gained much popularity with her work, she preferred to stay out of the limelight and work for smaller organizations such as Umbral. [11] Before leaving Europe for Mexico, Horna met the man she would later marry: Jose Horna, who was a craftsman and a sculptor. [13]

In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, she moved to Barcelona, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, to document the war as well as record the everyday life of communities on the front lines, such as Aragón, Valencia, Madrid, and Lérida. She photographed elderly women, young children, babies and mothers, and was considered visionary for her choice of subject matter.[8] Horna’s images, published in anarchist newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, revealed the brute effects of the war on civilians under siege. This was a different perspective for a different kind of war: the first major European conflict not confined to the battlefield. [15] She was editor of the magazine Umbral (where she me José Horna). Kati Horna collaborated with other magazines, most of which were anarchic, such as Tiempos Nuevos, Libre-Studio, Mujeres Libres and Tierra y Libertad.[16] Her images of scenes from the civil war not only revealed her Republican sympathies but also gained her almost legendary status.[4]

Some of her photos were used as posters for the Republican cause.

With José Horna, Kati escaped to Paris in 1939 after being pushed out by the national socialist party, Paris is where Horna’s career took off after being inspired in the great amount of poverty that could be observed at the time. While in Paris she was a reporter for the Lutetia-Press. [17] Horna was also reunited with her childhood friend Robert Capa, who led her to not only find her great passion for poetic narrative and staged shots but also her recurrent theme of masks and dolls. [18]

Horna also left to Paris with a large collection of negatives that would remain unseen until 1979, when democracy in Spain was reestablished. During the Nazi occupation of France, the couple were married and later sought refuge in Mexico, where she met other artists who were also fleeing war-torn Europe: Remedios Varo, Benjamín Péret, Emeric Chiki Weisz, Edward James, Tina Modotti and Leonora Carrington. Kati Horna and this group of outcast artists went on to become a tight knit circle of friends. The friendship between Kati Horna, Remedios Varo, and Leonora Carrrington would later be showcased in the 2010 exhibition Surreal Friends. [1] One of Kati Horna's most seen photographs captures Remedios Varo wearing one of her masks. [5][10]

Horna arrived in Mexico in October 1939, at the age of 27. Mexico was, for Kati Horna, her motherland and her patriotism was felt only for this country. She remained in Mexico for the rest of her life and was a contributor to magazines such as Todo (1939), Mapa (1940), Enigma (1941), El arte de cocinar (1944), Seguro Social (1944), among others.[19]

Nosotros magazine hired her as a full-time photographer in 1944. There she published series like "Títeres en la penitenciaría" [Puppets in the Penitentiary] or portraits of Alfonso Reyes in his library. In 1958, Horna was the chief photo editor of Mujeres magazine. During the second half of the 20th century she also did sporadic commissions for Revista de la Universidad de México, Mexico This Month, Tiempo, S.nob, Mujer de Hoy, Mujeres: Expresión Femenina, Revista de Revistas, Diseño, Vanidades, Arquitectura, Arquitectos de México, Obras.[20]

She also carried out more experimental projects that bear the imprint of surrealism.[21][22]

Architecture was another field that Kati Horna explored with interest. She collaborated with various architects like Luis Barragán, Carlos Lazo and Ricardo Legorreta, and documented buildings with historical value in order to provide a register of their conditions. Horna also published photos of recently inaugurated public buildings, like the Museo Nacional de Antropología [National Museum of Anthropology], Ciudad Universitaria [University Campus], Biblioteca Nacional [National Library]. In 1967, Kati Horna took photos of the Pre-Olympics for architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. Horna’s interest in architectural photography also expanded into capturing deteriorated and dilapidated buildings. This side of her photography harkens to her Surrealist connections as the subjects captured in these pieces allow for the viewers of said pieces to take part in their interpretation. [23] 

She was also a recognized professor at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas , the Academia de San Carlos and the Universidad Iberoamericana (between 1958 and 1963). Some of her most well-known works include What Goes in the Basket (1939), La Castañeda (1945), Fetiches (1962), Ode to Necrophilia (1962), Sucedió en Coyoacán (1962), Mujer y Máscara (1963), and Una Noche en el Sanatorio de Muñecas (1963).

Kati Horna died in October 2000. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions in Mexico, Spain, and other countries.