Elegance and Experimentation – Rediscovering Imre von Santhó’s Fashion Photographs

Opening on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 6 pm
Opening remarks by Bence Csalár fashion expert and writer
Curated by Balázs Gáspár
On view:
September 24, 2025 - November 30
Tuesday - Friday: 1 pm - 6 pm
Saturday - Sunday: 10 am - 6 pm
Closed on Mondays and public holidays.

Imre von Santhó was a graphic artist, illustrator, and fashion photographer in the first half of the 20th century. The Hungarian-born artist, known as Imre von Santhó, traveled to many countries during his lifetime, provoking scandal with his nude drawings and achieving success with his photographs. He lived in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s, where he worked with fashion models and movie stars, and his photos were published in renowned magazines. Despite all this, his works are little known in Hungary.

He was a versatile artist: he designed a poster for an early Mihály Kertész movie; he caused a stir with his scandalous nude drawings; exhibited at the artists’ club Fészek Művészklub, alongside Pál Molnár C. and István Zádor, among others; he was featured alongside the graphic artist Heinrich Zille in a German magazine; and designed a cover inspired by a photograph of Edward Steichen, an important figure in the history of photography.

Elegance and Experimentation, the first exhibition in Hungary dedicated to him, focuses primarily on his spectacular fashion photographs, but also showcases previously unseen graphics, illustrations, and documents. Santhó’s photographs are characterized by subtle elegance and harmonious composition, light and shadow effects, and a variety of locations. At the same time, he used experimental techniques and bold framing more than others, so his photos still appear remarkably fresh to today’s viewers. As journalist Werner Suhr wrote about him in 1936: “Santhó produces fashion photographs with such an interesting personal perspective that even those without the slightest interest in fashion enjoy exploring.”

The images on display at the exhibition come from the collections of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg and the Kunstbibliothek Berlin.

Biography of Imre von Santhó

Imre von Santhó was born in Budapest in 1893. In 1899, his father, the painter Miklós Santhó, took him to Munich, where he completed his secondary education and studied drawing at the schools of Anton Ažbe and Simon Hollósy. In 1914, he worked briefly as a draughtsman in a Berlin fashion studio. During the First World War, he was called up for military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After being wounded, for a time he lived in Budapest, where he opened a drawing school and created movie posters, fashion drawings, and commercial graphics. In 1920, he published nude drawings of Bäby Becker, a famous actress of the contemporary Pest arts scene, which led to a court case, but he was not punished.

In 1924, he moved to the German capital. From this year, during the Weimar Republic, his fashion drawings and literary illustrations appeared in illustrated magazines such as Das Magazin, Das Leben, and Berliner Leben, as well as in young adult books. From 1933, he created fashion photographs that were primarily published in Der Silberspiegel, often on the magazine’s cover. His images also appeared in the German magazines Die Dame and Die neuelinie, as well as in French,

Austrian, Polish, and Hungarian magazines. In the 1930s, he also photographed models in Vienna, Budapest, Italy, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He returned to the Hungarian capital in 1943. After the end of the war, he mainly produced caricatures. Around 1948 he went to Germany again, where he lived in Frankfurt am Main in the 1950s and died there.

Santhó was married twice. His first wife was Gabriele Silberberg, a German woman of Jewish descent whom, according to a document, he divorced in 1943. Silberberg survived the war and moved to the United States. His second wife, Katharina Haarhaus, recalled her relationship with Santhó as follows:  “This marriage was short, passionate, and not necessarily to the family’s taste.” His paternal half-brother, Kamill Santhó, was born in 1940 and lives in Karlsruhe today.

The research into the life and works of Imre von Santhó was made possible with the support of the European Union’s Culture Moves Europe mobility program and the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.