Martin Munkácsi (1896 - 1963), born in the then Hungarian Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), was one of the greatest pioneers of modern photojournalism and at the same time the best paid star photographer of his time. At the main stages of his success, in Budapest, Berlin and New York, he worked for such significant magazines as Pesti Napló, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, Harper's Bazaar, Life and Ladies' Home Journal. He photographed athletes and dancers, freed fashion photography from the confines of the studio and impressed motion upon the static medium of photography.

With his significant photographic reports and brilliant picture essays created at the peak of his success, in the 1930's and 1940's he made a deep impression not only on the great figures of photographic art such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon, but his spectacular fashion series also had a significant influence on the image of the modern, successful, independent and dynamic Western metropolitan woman. His series entitled How America Lives made between 1940 and 1946 and consisting of 65 reports is a thorough photographic report on the everyday life of Americans from the most various layers of society. Other highlights of his creative activity were the extraordinary portraits of Hollywood stars (Katherine Hepburn, Leslie Howard, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich). However, in the environment of the transformation of the medium and the changing taste of the era, his photography soon sank into oblivion and the one-time world famous star photographer died impoverished and forgotten.

In 2005 a large-scale retrospective exhibition was organised in the Internationales Haus der Photographie - Deichtorhallen Hamburg, and in 2006 in Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, which raised this Hungarian artist back to the place he deserves in the history of photography. It is this material that forms the basis of the Martin Munkácsi exhibition at the Ludwig Museum Budapest, supplemented with rare finds from private collections.