Kati Horna

Told and Untold, published in association with the first US solo exhibition dedicated to Kati Horna (1912–2000), features photographs—some never before seen—displayed alongside the newspapers and magazines in which they circulated. Though she is now perhaps best known as a Surrealist, Horna often defined herself as collaborator with the press, a definition that encompassed not only her activities as a field photographer during the Spanish Civil War, but also her work as a layout artist and photomonteur for anarchist publications. From her early years in interwar Paris through her late work produced in Mexico, this publication offers a comprehensive overview of Horna’s diverse practice, including her photographs, contact sheets, montaged cuttings and personal albums.

The photographic oeuvre of Kati Horna (1912-2000) spans decades, geographical boundaries and visual practices. Horna witnessed the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the outbreak of World War I, which ousted her from Budapest--after which she moved to Berlin, then Paris; and the Spanish Civil War, after which World War II prompted her final move to Mexico, her adopted country. It was in Mexico that Horna found her artistic community, among the Surrealist ex-pats Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Edward James. Even as a war photographer, she appropriated Surrealist photomontage, developing an original, intimate style of photojournalism. This superbly produced volume celebrates her extensive and diverse work, much of which has been previously unpublished or available only in limited circulation, and allows us to appreciate the incredible range of her oeuvre, from Surrealist to documentary photography. Featured alongside these photos are a chronology of Horna's life, essays by Peter Baki, Jean-Francois Chevrier, Estrella de Diego, Juan Manuel Bonet and Jos Antonio Rodriguez and a text by Horna's daughter, accompanied by documentary material from her personal archive.