807
substantive if not yet secure fi nancial platform provided
by this book, or perhaps beginning to express the fond-
ness for and sympathy with the culture and history of
his adopted country that would become so prominent
throughout the remainder of his life, Kraszna-Krausz in
the early 1940s began to publish large-format picture
books on nineteenth century photography.
Gallery of Immortal Portraits (1940) and Victorian
Photography (1942) featured works of William Henry
Fox Talbot, David Octavius Hill, Julia Margaret Cam-
eron, Roger Fenton, Frank M. Sutcliffe, and others,
selected from the permanent collection of the Royal
Photographic Society by Alex Strasser and introduced
by texts from Kraszna-Krausz. Most importantly, these
books reproduced original prints, at a time when 19th
century photography was principally known from copy
prints that over decades had gradually become more
and more “modern” in the sense that they attempted to
show the quality of Victorian images through printing
them with current techniques. Just how radical these
publications were at the time is hard to imagine now
given the roll-call of eminent pioneers they brought
out of the RPS archive, once-forgotten photographers
who are today honoured, studied, collected and many
times republished. Comprising volumes 1 and 2 of the
Classics of Photography, a nascent series cut short by
wartime limits on paper supplies, the publications were
accompanied by Kraszna-Krausz’s own very defensive
texts that beg his readers to understand the primitive
and awkward photographic technology used in the past,
to excuse the photographers’ subservience to styles
of painting already passé when the photographs were
made, and to recognise that modern photography had
successfully avoided the cul-de-sac that trapped the
Victorians.
It would seem that Kraszna-Krausz, a committed
modernist and advocate of democratic values in both
photography and moving pictures, was in these essays
beginning to work out for the fi rst time his relationship
to the history of photography and to its legacy. After
warning his readers that the Victorian photographers
had struggled gallantly with crude and undeveloped
tools, what Kraszna-Krausz celebrates is their spirit of
amateur adventurousness, along with their curiosity and
freedom to experiment which in his view saved photog-
raphy from the habitual and miserly commercialism of
the professional studios. Here, Kraszna-Krausz repeats
his conviction that honest amateurism was always to be
more valued than formulaic professionalism, a view that
was also a theme of much of his fi lm criticism in the late
1920s. The idealism that Kraszna-Krausz found in the
Victorian photographers was also a fundamental tenet
of his new publishing fi rm, which was committed to
providing access for every intelligent reader to modern
technical work in fi lmmaking and photography at the
highest level, clearly explained and concisely delivered.
By producing unvarnished albums of classic Victorian
photography untainted by romantic visions of the past,
Andor Kraszna-Krausz allowed a new generation to see
their work directly and to recognize the innate qualities
which made it a mirror of its period.
Deac RossellBiography
Born on 15 January 1904 in Szombathely, Hungary, to
Adolf and Irén (Rosenberger) Krausz, Andor Kraszna-
Krausz added the unidentifi ed “Kraszna” to his name
sometime before 1925, although in that year he ex-
perimented with spelling his name in several signed
articles as “Kraszna-Krauß,” “Kraszna-Kraus,” and
“Kraszna-Krausz.” Little is known about his youth and
early education; he was reputed to be an eager photog-
rapher from the age of twelve, to have studied law at
the University of Budapest, emigrating to Germany in
the early 1920s and followed up an intense interest in
photography and fi lm at Munich University. By 1925
he was in Berlin, working as a journalist for profes-
sional fi lm magazines to which he contributed fi lm
reviews, commentary, interviews and occasional book
reviews. Appointed in September, 1925, the chief fi lm
critic of the trade journal Die Filmtechnik published by
the specialist photography house of Wilhelm Knapp in
Halle, he became the magazine’s editor in January 1926
and oversaw every biweekly issue until the summer of
1936, when he left Knapp and Germany, ultimately set-
tling in the United Kingdom. In 1938 Kraszna-Krausz
established his own publishing enterprise in London,
Focal Press, which became the world’s largest photo-
graphic publishers, issuing both practical handbooks
and books on specialist techniques in photography,
fi lm, and television, issuing some 1,500 titles over its
fi rst half century. Kraszna-Krausz oversaw every aspect
of book production at the Focal Press, which continues
today, until he retired in 1978 at the age of seventy-
four. He was awarded the Kulturpreis of the German
Photographer’s Association in 1979, made an honorary
fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the British
Kinematograph Society, and established a foundation
in 1984 to support research in and award a book prize
for photography and fi lm, which upon his death in 1989
received the bulk of his estate.Further Reading
Chittock, John, “A Very Personal Refl ection on Andor Kraszna-
Krausz,” 22 July 1997, unpublished typescript, prepared for
the Hungarian Museum of Photography, Budapest.
——, “Dr Andor Kraszna-Krausz Hon FRPS, Hon FBKS,” in,
BJP (1990) x:x.
Die Filmtechnik. Zeitschrift für alle technischen und künstlerischen