Worker at the Drainage of the Tisza River (1937)
The worldwide influence of Hungarian photographers of the first half of the 20th century —Brassai, Capa, Kertész or Muller— is indisputable. Nor can we narrate the evolution of Spanish photography without the lucky presence of Nicolás Muller.
The photograph Worker at the Drainage of the Tisza River shows Muller’s work in his home country: Hungary. The wrinkled faces of the farmers and the unadulterated humanity that unmistakably breaks through.
Following the course of the Tisza River, the photographer immortalized the socio-economic reality that makes some of the country’s political parties uncomfortable for reflecting latent poverty. Muller also traveled through France, Portugal and Morocco as a chronicler of his time, until he finally returned to Spain in 1941.
In Spain he worked for, among others, the Revista de Occidente, surrounded by the intellectual environment of Ortega y Gasset and the Generation of ‘98. Ortega y Gasset said of Muller that he had “a tame light” and this statement hints at the importance of his work: handling the tools offered by photography with honesty, without interfering in the events portrayed, as the most accurate means of constructing reality.
Nicolás Muller
Hungary, 1913 — Llanes, Asturias, 2000
In the 1930s, a young Muller traveled through the entire region east of the Danube with his inseparable Rolleiflex, documenting the difficult living conditions of Hungarian farmers while portraying their customs. His images combine melancholy, denunciation and commitment to an inhospitable reality, key elements in his work, which is always full of humanism. After spending time in Tangier, he arrived in Spain in 1948 and decided to stay there, working mainly for Mundo Hispánico.