POINT OF VIEW
Gyula Zaránd started taking photography at the age of 15, following in the footsteps of her grandfather and her two parents, all photographers. He graduated from the Budapest School of Photography in 1963 where he studied with Demeter Balla and then continued his training at the Higher School of Journalism. He began as a reporter for Tükör magazine, whose director chose him to accompany Henri Cartier-Bresson during his ten-day trip to Budapest in 1966.
The young journalist began by photographing everyday life in his hometown, then became interested in the political and social unrest that swept through Hungary after 1956. Gyula Zaránd was often censored and some of his images considered as subversive – street children, military parades, beggars – were never published in his country at the time. The artist then left Hungary in 1971 to come to Paris where he became passionate about the originality of the city, the singularity of the neighborhoods, monuments and inhabitants.
The young Hungarian met Henri Cartier-Bresson there who encouraged him with his advice and introduced him to the community of Parisian photographers. The name of Gyula Zaránd then completes the list of Hungarian photographers who came to pursue a career in Paris: Brassaï, Kertész, Capa…
Much more than a photographer, Gyula Zaránd was a humanist reporter. He retained this desire to approach and document the daily lives of simple people with a strong social and political perspective throughout his life. The exhibition Budapest-Paris 1963-2001 offers the opportunity to rediscover an important artist, witness of his time, great lover of France and whose photographs are both witnesses and tools of a collective European memory.