Inge Morath

Inge Morath began her career in 1953, serving first as an assistant to Henri Cartier-Bresson at Magnum Photos, the famed photojournalism agency. Morath chose

her portrait subjects based on her admiration for or curiosity about them. Her description of a sitting with The Honorable Victoria Sackville-West (English, 1862-

1936) evokes her respect:

[She] received me in her role as grand lady gardener on the grounds of her home. . . . The severity of her clothing was immediately countered by her transparent eyes and the passionate courtesy with which she took me around the famous gardens she had created within the walls of Sissinghurst. . . . There was a feeling of strength in this beauty. It emanated from her person, Vita Sackville-West of Knole, flamboyant friend of Violet Trefusius and Virginia Woolf, author of many books,

from garden poems to her great biography of Joan of Arc, to The Edwardians, to the best selling novel All Passions Spent.

(Inge Morath, Portraits. New York: Aperture Foundation, 1986, pp. 91-92.)