Edith Tudor-Hart - In The Shadow Of Tyranny

Edith Tudor-Hart - In The Shadow Of Tyranny

During the 1930s photography became implicated in the vital political and social questions of the era as never before. A key exponent was the Viennese-born photographer Edith Tudor-Hart, who left Austria for Britain after being arrested for her political activities in 1933. Having trained at the Bauhaus she pursued a career as a documentary and portrait photographer, covering issues of poverty, social division and child welfare in Vienna, London, Tyneside, Wales and Scotland.

Tudor-Hart’s photography constitutes a sophisticated Realism, marked by its directness and capacity to communicate. Notoriously, she also worked as a low-level agent for the Soviets in both Austria and Britain and was pursued by the security services until her death in 1973. The exhibition includes remarkable black and white photographs capturing the politically-charged atmosphere of interwar Vienna, Britain during the slump of the 1930s, and Tudor-Hart’s psychologically penetrating imagery of children during the post-war years.

Image © National Galleries of Scotland