20x200

Rehearsal of "Nocturne." With violin: Madame J.M. Amar; under flower arch: Madame Jacques de Lecretelle; with triangle: Countess Louis de Gontaut-Biron; at the piano: Mr. Robert Veyron-Lacroix, 1955 by Inge Morath © Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum Photo

[Update: Two limited-edition photographs from Inge Morath's Bal d'Hiver series, Bal d'Hiver, Paris, 1955. Cynthia Balfour rehearsing "Fire Vanquished by Snow." + Bal d'Hiver, Paris, 1955. Cynthia Balfour, back to camera, and Baroness de Cabrol., are now available, starting at $100 for the pair. Proceeds benefit the Magnum Foundation's Legacy Program and the Inge Morath Foundation.]

20x200 partners with remarkable organizations to bring collectors great art for a great cause. This month, we’re excited to be working with the Magnum Foundation again, this time to release a pair of prints from renowned photographer Inge Morath. Sales of the striking, black and white photographs will benefit Magnum’s Legacy Program, as well as the Inge Morath Foundation.

Sign up for the 20x200 newsletter (here!) to get automatic notification and first dibs on the prints when they are released on November 10th. While the exact images won’t be revealed until then, we’ll share a little bit more about Morath and why we’re so thrilled to be presenting her work.

The limited-edition photographs that will be featured on 20x200 were taken by Morath at the 1955 Bal d’Hiver, a charity ball in Paris. For the big event, European royalty donned spectacular costumes donated by couturiers, including Hubert de Givenchy and Christian Dior, to enact a dance on ice. Morath expertly captured all of the glorious details—of the costumes, and the celebrity guests—giving us all a peek into the realm of the mid-century, European social elite. The pair of prints to be offered on 20x200 feature the most elegant starlet of the evening. Other attendees included an international roster of celebrities, from the Countess d’Paris to film star Charlie Chaplin.

Princess Chavchavadze as Empress Catherine the Great, 1955 by Inge Morath © Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum Photo

Of Morath’s oeuvre, John Jacob—Director of the Magnum Foundation Legacy Program and Director of the Inge Morath Foundation—says, “If a thread can be said to run through her work from beginning to end, it is the marvel of human creativity, which Morath both recorded and exemplified in her photography.”

Inge Morath herself is perhaps best remembered for her intrepid nature. A friend of photographer Ernst Haas, she wrote articles to accompany his photographs and was invited by Robert Capa and Haas to Paris to join the newly founded Magnum agency as an editor. She began photographing in London in 1951, and assisted Henri Cartier-Bresson as a researcher in 1953-54. In 1955, after working for two years as a photographer, she became a Magnum member.

In the following years, Morath traveled extensively in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Her special interest in the arts found expression in photographic essays published by a number of leading magazines. After her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller in 1962, Morath settled in New York and Connecticut. She first visited the USSR in 1965. In 1972 she studied Mandarin and obtained a visa to China, making the first of many trips to the country in 1978.

Morath was at ease anywhere. Some of her most important work consists of portraits, but also of passers-by and celebrities. She was also adept at photographing places: Her pictures of Boris Pasternak's home, Pushkin's library, Chekhov's house, Mao Zedong's bedroom, artists' studios and cemetery memorials are permeated with the spirit of invisible people still present. Inge Morath died in New York City on January 30, 2002.

Upon his wife’s passing, Arthur Miller summed up Morath’s contributions to photography by telling the New York Times, “She made poetry out of people and their places over half a century.”

Princess Troubetzkoy, as Prince Youssoupoff, practices her bow to Ivan the Terrible, 1955 by Inge Morath © Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum Photo

The Inge Morath Foundation is dedicated to educational programs and traveling exhibitions encompassing Morath’s prolific career, and to providing awards, including an annual $5,000 grant for female photographers under the age of 30.

The Magnum Foundation's Legacy Program is dedicated to preserving, interpreting and making accessible materials related to the history of Magnum Photos, and to the larger history of photography to which Magnum has uniquely contributed.

Be sure to sign up for the 20x200 newsletter here to get first access to the prints and for more details about the partnership with Magnum Foundation and Inge Morath Foundation.