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Sonja Bullaty

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Sonja Vera Bullaty (October 17, 1923, Prague, Czechoslovakia – October 5, 2000, New York) was a Czech-American photographer. Bullaty is known for her "lyrical composition" and strong use of color during her fifty-year collaboration with her husband, Angelo Lomeo.[1] Bullaty and Lomeo's photographs appeared in LIFE, Time and Audubon magazines and journal.[2] They have both exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography,[2] the George Eastman House, UMPRUM Museum in Prague, in the Nikon House galleries and other venues.[3]

Biography

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Bullaty was born in Prague to a Jewish banking family.[1] Her family gave her a camera when she turned fourteen.[4] Since Bullaty had been forced to leave school at the time, the camera was a "consolation gift."[1] When Bullaty was eighteen, she was deported by the Nazis to Poland, where she was kept in the Lodz ghetto,[5] and then later taken to Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camps.[6] During a death march near Dresden, she and a friend successfully hid in a barn and were able to escape and return to Prague.[1] When she got back to her home city, she discovered that no one else in her family had survived the Holocaust.[1]

Bullaty, "her head shaved," saw and answered an advertisement to be the helper to Czech photographer, Josef Sudek.[7][6] As his assistant, she mixed chemicals for the darkroom, organized his negatives and learned from his sense of composition.[1] Sudek called her his "apprentice-martyr."[8] Sudek's work often focused on the Czech landscape and windows, such as in the series The Windows of My Studio (1940-1954).[9] Bullaty also photographed windows, but unlike Sudek, who photographed his own windows looking out, Bullaty photographed windows looking into buildings.[10] Bullaty published a book, Sudek (1978), about her mentor, and it was the first publication of his work in the West.[1][11]

A "distant relative" of Bullaty found her name on a Holocaust survivor's list and invited her to stay in New York in 1947, paying the boat fair from Europe for Bullaty.[1] Bullaty quit working for Sudek, but they remained friends, exchanging letters over the years.[7] Many of his letters to her were written on the backs of his photographs.[12]

Bullaty found work with a photographer on her third day in New York.[13] Also in 1947, she met Angelo Lomeo.[6] They were brought together when she was inquiring about a darkroom in a building he managed.[1] Lomeo was intrigued by Bullaty's accent and went to see her.[13] They started photographing together a year later, traveling and sharing resources; during their time together, they became close.[13] Bullaty and Lomeo were married in 1951.[1] Later, when she was married, she and her husband would visit Sudek and bring him photography supplies.[12] They visited him in Czechoslovakia "almost yearly."[14] In 1971, she helped mount an exhibition of Sudek's work in New York.[8]

As photographers, Bullaty and Lomeo started using studio cameras, but eventually changed to working on location with 35-mm SLR cameras.[10] They began their career photographing artwork for museums and galleries.[1] In addition, much of their work was originally in black and white, but they switched to color in 1970.[1] Lomeo and Bullaty had their first photographic assignment in 1948, located in the American South.[4] While photographing, Bullaty was grabbed by a Ku Klux Klansman and "pretended to be merely a tourist."[4] Bullaty and Lomeo worked together on assignments all over the world.[10] One series that Bullaty and Lomeo worked together on included windows from around the world and was featured in Popular Photography magazine.[15] LIFE magazine featured their photos of Yugoslavian peasant-painters and their art in 1964.[16] The couple were the first to receive the Olivia Ladd Gilliam Award from the Orion Society.[3]

Despite working together, Bullaty had her own personal vision: she was intrigued by "Kafkaesque shadows she remembers from her childhood."[13] She also captured the effects of climate and seasons in her landscape work.[17] Bullaty said, "I have often felt that the reason I celebrate life and beauty is precisely because I have seen so much pain and ugliness."[18]

Bullaty died from cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on October 5, 2000.[6] In 2001, Bullaty and Lomeo had 72 photographs featured in The World Trade Center Remembered.[19]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Sonja Bullaty, 76, a Photographer of Lyricism". The New York Times. 13 October 2000. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Deaths". The Washington Post. 14 October 2000. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Artists' Statement and Biographies: Sonja Bullaty and Angelo Lomeo". EnviroLink. Archived from the original on 21 August 2008. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  4. ^ a b c Fondiller, Harvey V. (July 1982). "Shows We've Seen". Popular Photography. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  5. ^ "Lodz Ghetto List". JewishGen. Museum of Jewish Heritage. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d "Sonja Bullaty; Photographer Noted for Painterly Works". Los Angeles Times. 16 October 2000. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  7. ^ a b Tutter 2013, p. 171.
  8. ^ a b Banville, John (2010). Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781408820711.
  9. ^ Fisher, Meredith. "Josef Sudek". International Center of Photography. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  10. ^ a b c Fondiller 1983, p. 115.
  11. ^ "Sudek: 2nd Edition". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  12. ^ a b Desfor, Irving (4 February 1979). "Camera Angles". Elyria Chronicle Telegram. Retrieved 15 May 2016 – via Newspaper Archive.
  13. ^ a b c d Bultman, Janis (1985). "Double Visions: An Interview with Sonja Bullaty & Angelo Lomeo (Previously Published in Darkroom Photography, September 1985)". Janis Bultman. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  14. ^ Desfor, Irving (5 June 1977). "Poetic Images: Sudek Retrospective". Farmington Daily Times. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  15. ^ Fondiller 1983, p. 47.
  16. ^ "Peasant Painters of Yugoslavia". LIFE. Time Inc. 10 January 1964. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  17. ^ Ballenger, Noella (March 2008). "Landscape Photography – Accessing Your Photo Options". Apogee Photo Magazine. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  18. ^ Dolgoff, Stephanie (1993). "The Need for Beauty: Lavender in Provence". American Photo. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  19. ^ Milliot, Jim (29 October 2001). "Dislocated Abbeville Plans WTC Book". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 15 May 2016.

Sources

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