My journey ends here...
MURAY Nikolas
Date of birth : February 15, 1892, Szeged, Hungary.
Date of death : November 2, 1965, New York.
Profession photographer (
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Story
His father worked as a postman. In 1894, the family settled in Budapest in order to find a better education and better economic conditions.
His parents favored him among their other children, while he was the most intelligent and handsome, with a
charming personality (
).
After graduated an International Engraver's Certificate, he attended for 3 years color photo-engraving courses in Berlin where, among others, he learned making color filters.
At the end of his studies, he worked for publisher Ullstein.
On August 13, 1913, with the war threats in Europe, he boarded to New York and landed in Ellis Island where he became Nickolas Muray.
He quickly found a job as a printer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He attended English night school.
On March 5, 1915 he married Ilona (Ellen) Fulop (May 21, 1891, Hungary)(
), a Hungarian literature figure. They divorced several years later.
Registration card June 5, 1917 
.
In 1920, he opened his own photo studio at his home of Greenwich Village, while working as an engraver.
In 1921, he received a commission from Harper's Bazaar magazine, to make a portrait of stage actress Florence
Reed (
), and shortly after, his pictures were published monthly in the magazine. So he was able to dedicate himself to photography.
He fell in love with Czech ballerina Desha Gorska, but married her own sister, Leja Gorska (born Podoresk June 22, 1897, Ljubljana, Austria-Hungary-October 29, 1988, American consulate, Bordeaux, France).
They had a daughter Arija (August 11, 1922, New York-September 19, 1941, New York).
They divorced at the end of the 1920'.
In 1926, Vanity Fair magazine sent him in London, Paris and Berlin, and in 1929
he was hired to photograph the
Hollywood stars (
). He also worked in fashion and advertisment. His pictures were published in magazines such as Vogue, Ladies Home Journal and the New York Times.
He also wrote articles in Dance magazine.
When he signed a contract with the Ladies Home Journal in 1930 for colored fashion pictures, he traveled to Germany to buy the required equipment to convert his studio as one of the first color lab in the USA.
He became famous as the master of the color carbon method.
At the beginning of the 1920', he was introduced to Miguel Covarrubias (
), arrived in New York in 1923 with a Mexican government scholarship. He made caricatures for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker magazines,
but was also a writer and illustraited his own books, and many others from others authors.With Muray they became friends (
) and for a time they shared an apartment at 129MacDougall Street (
) where they used to hold parties every Wednesday nights.He also became friend with other Mexican artists who camed to New York.
Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Riviera became close friends with Muray; he had an affair with Frida when
Riviera filed for divorce in 1939 (
,
).In 1927 he won the Saber National Championship (fencing
) and in 1928 and 1932,
he belonged to the United States Olympic Team. During the World War II, he was captain in the Civil Air Patrol.
Between 1920 and 1940 he made more than 10 000 portraits. His portrait of Frida Kahlo in 1938 (
)
while she was staying in New York, became Muray's most famous and
most appreciated portrait. They were both at the peak of their story
when this portrait was made.Their affair started in 1931, shortly after Frida's wedding with Diego Riviera. It survived Muray's third wedding and Kahlo's divorce then second wedding with Riviera at the end of 1941.
Muray wanted to marry her but Kahlo only wanted him as her lover; he left her for good and married his 4th wife. Nevertheless, they remained friends until her death in 1954.
After the stock marker crash, he kept away from fame and portraits, and became pioneer in commercial photo.
His last important public portrait was Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950' (
).In June 1930 he married his third wife Monica O'Shea, a young woman who worked in the publicity business. They divorced in 1937.
Census 1940, he lived at the La Salle hotel in Manhattan
.On June 23, 1942, he married Margaret Schwab, his 4th and last wife.
Together they had 2 children, Michael B. "Mimi" (born in 1943, New York) and Nicholas Christopher (born on December 24, 1945, New York).
He died in 1965 from a heart attack, at the New York Athletic Club, while he practised fencing.
He had won more than 60 médals and was considered as one of the 20 best fencer of the United States history.
Marilyn's pictures beginning of the 1950'
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