# Ida Kar

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{{Short description|Russian photographer (1908–1974)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{use list-defined references|date=January 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2015}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Ida Kar
| image         = Ida Kar by Mark Gerson, 1974, grayscale, cropped.jpg
| image_size    = 
| alt           = Ida Kar a few months before her death, in a flowery dress with her arms raised
| caption       = Ida Kar a few months before her death, photographed by Mark Gerson
| birth_name    = Ida Karamian (or Karamanian)
| birth_date    = 8 April 1908
| birth_place   = [Tambov](/source/Tambov), [Russian Empire](/source/Russian_Empire)
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1974|12|24|1908|4|8|df=yes}}
| death_place   = [Bayswater, London](/source/Bayswater%2C_London), England
| nationality   = 
| spouse        = {{unbulleted list|Edmond Belali|[Victor Musgrave](/source/Victor_Musgrave)}}
| field         = photography, particularly portraits
| training      = 
| movement      = 
| works         = 
| patrons       = 
| awards        = 
| signature =
}}

'''Ida Kar''' (8 April 1908 – 24 December 1974) was a photographer active mainly in London after 1945. She took many [black-and-white](/source/black-and-white_photography) portraits of artists and writers.{{r|npg|npg2}} Her solo show of photographs at the [Whitechapel Gallery](/source/Whitechapel_Gallery) in 1960 was the first of its kind to be held in a major public gallery in London.{{r|dnb}} Kar thus made a significant contribution to the recognition of photography as a form of fine art.

== Life and work ==
Kar was born Ida Karamian{{r|dnb}} (or Karamanian{{r|pen}}) in [Tambov](/source/Tambov) in Russia on 8 April 1908.{{r|grove}} Her parents were [Armenian](/source/Armenian_people); her father taught mathematics and physics.{{r|helmut}} The family moved to Iran when Kar was eight, and to [Alexandria](/source/Alexandria) in Egypt when she was thirteen.{{r|pen|brit}} She studied at the [Lycée Français](/source/Lyc%C3%A9e_Fran%C3%A7ais) there.{{r|helmut}} When she was twenty she went to Paris to study chemistry and medicine, but soon began to study singing instead.{{r|brit}} 

She frequented the ''[avant-garde](/source/avant-garde)'' artists and writers of the Parisian [Rive Gauche](/source/Rive_Gauche), among them [Piet Mondrian](/source/Piet_Mondrian) and [Yves Tanguy](/source/Yves_Tanguy), and became interested in [socialist](/source/socialist) politics, in photography and in [Surrealism](/source/Surrealism).{{r|dnb|vanora}} She was at the first showing in 1929 of ''[Un Chien Andalou](/source/Un_Chien_Andalou)'' by [Luis Buñuel](/source/Luis_Bu%C3%B1uel) and [Salvador Dalí](/source/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD).{{r|pen}} Her first work as a photographer was in the studio of the Surrealist photographer and painter [Heinrich Heidersberger](/source/Heinrich_Heidersberger).{{r|grove|npg4}}

In 1933 Kar returned to Alexandria. In the late 1930s she married Edmond Belali, and together they opened a photographic studio, Idabel, in [Cairo](/source/Cairo). There Kar came into contact with [Egyptian Surrealists](/source/Egyptian_Surrealism) including [Ikbal El Alailly](/source/Ikbal_El_Alailly) and [Georges Henein](/source/Georges_Henein), and with members of the [Art and Liberty](/source/Art_and_Liberty) movement.{{r|don}} 

During the [Second World War](/source/Second_World_War) Kar and Belali participated in two Surrealist exhibitions in Cairo, the second of them in 1944. In the same year she divorced Belali and married the British poet and art dealer [Victor Musgrave](/source/Victor_Musgrave), who at that time was in the [RAF](/source/RAF);{{r|vanora}} in 1945 they moved to London.{{r|dnb}}

In London Kar came into contact with artists who had been involved with Surrealism, including [Paul Nash](/source/Paul_Nash_(artist)) and [E. L. T. Mesens](/source/E._L._T._Mesens),{{r|pen}} and began to meet the artists and writers who would be her subjects. She specialized in portraiture, and in 1954 showed "Forty artists from Paris and London" at Gallery One, the gallery space her husband had opened at 1 Litchfield Street in [Soho](/source/Soho) the previous year; the show had little impact.{{r|dnb}}

[John Kasmin](/source/John_Kasmin) became her assistant in 1956, and in 1958 her manager. He arranged to learn when famous artists were to visit London; they were told that Kar had been commissioned to photograph them, and the photographs were later sold to the press.{{r|vanora}}

Also in 1956, [Terry Taylor](/source/Terry_Taylor_(photographer)) was introduced to Kar and Musgrave by [Colin MacInnes](/source/Colin_MacInnes), who had a room above the Gallery One premises, which had by then moved to 20 [D'Arblay Street](/source/D'Arblay_Street), Soho. Taylor, then in his early twenties, became Kar's assistant and within a short time also her lover; Musgrave apparently did not mind.{{r|barry}}

Kar visited Armenia in 1957, and the  [Soviet Union](/source/Soviet_Union) in 1958. In 1959 she again travelled to the Soviet Union, where she photographed [Shostakovich](/source/Shostakovich) and others, to France, where she photographed, among others, [Braque](/source/Braque) and [Ionesco](/source/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ionesco), and to [East Germany](/source/East_Germany), where an exhibition of her Armenian photographs was held. In the same year she was commissioned by ''[Tatler](/source/Tatler)'' to photograph London art dealers.{{r|npg4}}

In 1968 Kar advertised for an assistant in the ''[British Journal of Photography](/source/British_Journal_of_Photography)''. At Musgrave's suggestion, she formed a group with three of the applicants, Leslie Smithers, Lawrence Ellar and John Couzins. She called it KarSEC, from her name and their initials. The group dissolved in 1969.{{r|clare}}

The [National Portrait Gallery](/source/National_Portrait_Gallery%2C_London) in London acquired Kar's photograph archive in 1999, and in 2011 mounted a major exhibition of her work, ''Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer 1908–1974''.{{r|npg3}} It was the first time in more than 50 years that her work had been shown, and included more than a hundred photographs that not previously been exhibited.{{r|bbc}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|45em|refs=

<ref name=barry>Barry Miles (2010). [https://books.google.com/books?id=gYn87V36p5AC&pg=PT63 ''London Calling: A Countercultural History of London since 1945'']. London: Atlantic Books Ltd. {{ISBN|9781848875548}}. {{nobreak|p. 63.}}</ref>

<ref name=bbc>[s.n.] (15 December 2010). [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11998337 In pictures: Ida Kar exhibition]. ''BBC News''. Accessed February 2018.</ref>

<ref name=brit>[Liverpool Photographic Society] (1962). [https://books.google.com/books?id=JQguAQAAIAAJ ''British Journal of Photography''], volume 109. Liverpool: Henry Greenwood & Company. {{nobreak|p. 200.}}</ref>

<ref name=clare>Clare Freestone (2011). [http://www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/exhibitions/IdaKar_Interview_FacetoFace.pdf Ida Kar: Behind the Scenes]. London: National Portrait Gallery. Accessed January 2015.</ref>

<ref name=dnb>Susan Bright (May 2006). [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/64200 Kar, Ida (1908–1974)]. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', online edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{doi|10.1093/ref:odnb/64200}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

<ref name=don>Don LaCoss (2010). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27934079 Egyptian Surrealism and "Degenerate Art" in 1939]. ''The Arab Studies Journal'' '''18''' (1): 78-117. Arab Studies Institute. {{nobreak|p. 84–85.}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

<ref name=grove>Vanessa Rocco (2013). [http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2229317 Kar, Ida.]. ''Grove Art Online'' – ''Oxford Art Online''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed February 2015. {{subscription required}}</ref>

<ref name=helmut>Helmut Gernsheim (1991). ''Creative photography: aesthetic trends, 1839-1960'']. New York: Dover Publications. {{ISBN|0486267504}}. {{nobreak|p. 239.}}</ref>

<ref name=npg>[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp07861&role=art Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer]. National Portrait Gallery. Accessed January 2015.</ref>

<ref name=npg2>[http://www.npg.org.uk/IdaKarFeature/Ida_Kar.htm NPG Whitechapel Gallery exhibition microsite]</ref>

<ref name=npg3>[http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2011/ida-kar-bohemian-photographer-minisite/ida-kar-home.php Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer 1908–1974: 10 March – 19 June 2011: Home]. National Portrait Gallery. Accessed January 2015.</ref>

<ref name=npg4>[http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2011/ida-kar-bohemian-photographer-minisite/ida-kar-explore.php Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer 1908–1974: 10 March – 19 June 2011: Explore]. National Portrait Gallery. Accessed February 2015.</ref>

<ref name=pen>Penelope Rosemont (1998). [https://books.google.com/books?id=hMIru5bweYgC&pg=PA189 Ida Kar]; in ''Surrealist women: an international anthology''. London: Athlone Press. {{ISBN|0485300885}}. {{nobreak|p. 189.}}</ref>

<ref name=vanora>Vanora Bennett (23 February 2011) [http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/ida-kar-bohemian-photographer-national-portrait-gallery Portraits of an artist]. ''Prospect'' '''180''' (March 2011): 76–79. Accessed February 2015.</ref>

}}

== Further reading ==
* Colin MacInnes ''et al.'' (1960). ''Ida Kar: An Exhibition of Portraits of Artists and Writers in Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, and other photographs, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, March–April 1960.'' London: [The Whitechapel Gallery].
* Val Williams (1989). ''Ida Kar: Photographer''. London: Virago Press. {{ISBN|9781853811043}}.
* Clare Freestone, Karen Wright (2011). ''Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer''. London: National Portrait Gallery. {{ISBN|9781855144224}}.

{{Authority control|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kar, Ida}}
Category:1908 births
Category:1974 deaths
Category:People from Tambov
Category:Photographers from London
Category:Ethnic Armenian photographers
Category:British people of Armenian descent
Category:British portrait photographers
Category:20th-century British women photographers
Category:Russian surrealist artists
Category:Women surrealist artists

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Ida Kar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Kar) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Kar?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.