Biogrphy
2013., kormendigaleria.hu
Born 11 January 1956 in Budapest. He began to photograph at the Franciscan High School in Esztergom. After receiving his diploma, he completed vocational training as a photographer in Budapest. He worked as staffman, hospital porter, and as photographer for an artisan, and then between 1978-88 he became a photojournalist and columnist at the weekly, Magyar Ifjúság (Hungarian Youth). Meanwhile, he was made a member of the Studio of Young Photographers (FFS), and became secretary between 1983-86 – thus taking part in many professional decisions, as well.
In 1981, he won the City of Paris Award with his photos. Completing the photojournalism faculty of the Hungarian Association of Journalists (MÚOSZ) Journalism School, at the same time, in 1983, he gained admission to the Hungarian Association of Photographers, and to the Art Foundation. In 1987, as photojournalist for Youth Publications, he was awarded the Standard Award of the Hungarian Association of Journalists. He worked until 1990 at the weekly Képes 7, and since then has been a freelance photographer.
With his wife, photographer Judit M. Horváth, until 1995 he regularly published in the Roma magazine, Amaro Drom (Our Path), while from 1992 he was photo editor for VOLT magazine.
He has photographed the life and situation of gypsies in Hungary since his period in the Studio. In 1998, their joint album with Judit M. Horváth, entitled Más Világ (Another World), of more than ten years of their work, was published, and in whose dedication President Árpád Göncz wrote: “These pictures are exclamation points. The exclamation points of our conscience!” An exhibition arranged from the photos within was presented in many Hungarian and European cities.
György Stalter professes to be a “subjective documentary” photographer. This approach and knowledge is what he passes on to his students in the ASA Photo Studio, established together with Gábor Kerekes in 1995.
From the mid-nineties, his work together with his wife was awarded a number of times at the Hungarian Press Photo competitions; in 1997, he was awarded the Balogh Rudolf Prize.
The Kópia Fotógaléria (Copy Photo Gallery) that he established provided the possibility for his colleagues to show their work, within solo and group exhibitions.
In 2006, his photos at the Press Photo exhibition were awarded in a number of categories, and he also won the Budapest Photography Scholarship for his work on Józsefváros (Budapest’s 8th District). His album of this material, entitled Város a városban (City within a City), was published in 2010. “This series is the result of a working process of several years, and I intend to reform the documentary photography that I know so well. I employ a unique colour palette, which I achieve with analogue image-modifying procedures. It is my aim to elevate the simple reality into a reality that is a subjective document of the era, which I realise” – he wrote on an internet portal.
In the following year, he received the possibility to work in Berlin with a Moholy-Nagy László Scholarship: his material on Józsefváros was expanded with photos comparing it to a German ghetto district. An exhibition of the photos, entitled Neukölln/Nyolcker, was opened in Berlin, and then in the autumn of 2012, at the FUGA Budapest Architecture Centre. Stalter is currently an active participant on the jury of the Pécsi József Scholarship.
Already from the mid-eighties, he travelled a lot. The diverse locations of his foreign reports (without an attempt at completeness): Vietnam (1984), Cuba (1984), China (1987), Mozambique (1988), Ethiopia (1989), Harlem in New York (1989), India (2000).
A portion of his oeuvre is held at the Hungarian Museum of Photography in Kecskemét, in the Historical Archive of the Hungarian National Museum, and in the Körmendi-Csák Collection of 20th Century Hungarian Photography.
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