Paul Almasy (Born 1906) was born in Budapest. He was a pioneer of photojournalism. Almasy left his native Budapest at the tender age of seventeen, and after various breaks, among others in Munich and Vienna, he ended up in Paris, a city which was to become his home and main point of reference for him. It was from here that he set out on his innumerable world trips on behalf of UNESCO, WHO, and UNICEF. The self-taught photojournalist traveled the world with his camera for more than six decades. During this time took more than 120,000 photographs. He refers to his collection as an “archive of the world.” He catalogues the photographs by country – and for each country he visited, he then sorts the images by category: economy, state, everyday life, culture, plants and animals being but a few of them. Almasy established a comprehensive and detailed picture archive that today constitutes a unique document of twentieth century history.
His art bears witness to his preference for things foreign and his interest in the fabric of society. His black-and-white photographs focus almost always on people. The photographer was not concerned with social class; he photographed not only the powerful men of his time, but also rice farmers in Indonesia, midwives in Africa, and street children in Mexico. He became French citizen in 1956 and died in Paris in September 2003 at the age of 97. He never viewed himself as a photographer but rather as a photojournalist. He wanted his pictures to inform the viewer, so he made sure the form never outweighed the content.
