Ata Kando

The Hungarian-Dutch photographer Ata Kandó was born in Budapest in 1913. In 1932 she left for Paris with her first husband, the artist Gyula Kandó, with whom she had three children. After the war she joined the Magnum photo agency as an assistant. In 1954 she married the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken and moved to Holland with him. Kandó first made her name with compassionate photographs of refugees fleeing Hungary after the suppressed uprising of 1956 and of aboriginal tribes in Amazonia. At the same time she was taking poetic photos of her own children as well as photographing for a number of fashion houses. Ata Kandó also played a significant role for younger generations of Dutch photographers through her teaching at the Enschede Academy of Visual Arts (aki) and elsewhere. Among her pupils were later luminaries such as Koen Wessing and Ad van Denderen, the latter of whom, together with Leo Erken, made the selection for this monograph. Philosopher, political scientist and NRC Handelsblad journalist Rosan Hollak contributes a fascinating biographical portrait of one of Dutch photographic historys most striking figures.