Lucien Aigner shot his wayo deserved fame

By Arthur Pollock
February 6, 2011

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt. All well-known pioneers of photojournalism. Lucien Aigner? Not so much.

The Hungarian photographer, who spent his later years in Massachusetts, worked for many of the same publications as his legendary colleagues but never received the same recognition. That may start to change thanks to the first major museum showing of his work since the 1980s.

For many years now, his two daughters, who live in the Boston area, have taken on the onerous task of cataloging their father’s 80,000 images. Organized by guest curator Jennifer Uhrhane, the 74 prints in the exhibit at the deCordova Museum in Lincoln (through April 24) concentrate on Aigner’s European magazine photo stories from the 1930s, pre-war Parisian life and his memorable portraits of historical and cultural figures. Many of them have never been seen since their original publication.

The vintage gelatin silver prints in this exhibit display his wit, his timing, his sense of drama and humor. Take his images from the photo story “Le Club des Cent Kilos” (“The Fat Men’s Club”). The photos of these corpulent men on their tiny bicycles could be easily be published today and feel just as fresh and amusing.

Among his celebrity portraits, two stand out. One is of Benito Mussolini at Stresa, Italy, in 1935, which made the cover of Newsweek. It illustrates Aigner’s motto, “Don’t interrupt life, capture it.” The imperious Italian dictator is caught in an unguarded moment at a railroad station, holding his nose with a gloved hand, as if about to sneeze.

The other is of Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, arriving in Geneva in 1936 to implore the League of Nations to help him repel Mussolini’s invasion of his country. He is gazing off in the distance, looking serious, possibly a bit sad, yet proud.

Aigner’s lack of recognition as a major figure in photography might be traced to his move from Europe to the United States. It took a long time to restart his career, hustling for freelance assignment in a very competitive, new environment.

Subsequently, deciding to live in a small western Massachusetts town also removed him from the limelight. But his early work clearly shows that he belongs in the pantheon of pioneers of modern photojournalism, alongside his better-known contemporaries.

© Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Media.