Kati Horna

Kati Horna

1912 - 2000

Kati Horna, born Katalin Deutsch, was a Hungarian-born Mexican photojournalist, surrealist photographer and teacher. She was born in Budapest, at the time part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, lived in France, Germany, Spain, and later was naturalized Mexican. Most of her work was considered lost during the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the influential women photographers of her time. Through her photographs she was able to change the way that people viewed war. One way that Horna was able to do this was through the utilization of a strategy called "gendered witnessing". Gendered witnessing consisted of putting a feminist view on the notion that war was a predominantly masculine thing.

Horna became a legendary photographer after taking on a woman's perspective of the war, she was able to focus on the behind-of-the-scenes, which led her to portraying the impact that war had on women and children. One of her most striking images is the Tête de poupée (doll's head). Horna worked for various magazines including Mujeres and S.NOB, in which she published a series of fétiches, but even her more commercial commissions often contained surreal touches

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023