Marion Palfi was a German-American social-documentary photographer born in Berlin.
21 Facts About Marion Palfi
1.
2.
Marion Palfi studied dance at private schools in Germany, and as a young woman she worked as a model, dancer, and actress, appearing in at least one film in 1926.
3.
In 1932, Marion Palfi became an apprentice at a commercial portrait studio in Berlin and began working as a freelance magazine photographer.
4.
Marion Palfi then fled Europe for the United States in 1940 after marrying an American soldier, Benjamin Weiss.
5.
Great American Artists of Minority Groups opened doors for her: after meeting Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, Marion Palfi was asked to photograph for a number of African American Causes.
6.
Marion Palfi was granted an award from the Rosenwald Fellowship in 1946.
7.
Marion Palfi was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967 and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1974.
8.
Marion Palfi's work centered around equity, opportunity, and justice for all people.
9.
Marion Palfi was a contributing photographer to Edward Steichen's landmark Family of Man exhibition in 1955.
10.
Marion Palfi was confused by Americans lack to acknowledge of these problems within their communities.
11.
Marion Palfi decided to use her camera as a way to document these problems and bring attention to them within the public eye.
12.
Marion Palfi's photography explored the concepts of social injustices in America.
13.
Marion Palfi created many photographic studies that focus on racial injustice against African Americans, poverty in cities, and racial discrimination against Native Americans.
14.
Marion Palfi originally had trouble getting her photographs displayed or show cased because many Americans refused to address these social justice issues within their own society.
15.
Marion Palfi was the first photographer to arrive in Greenwood, Mississippi at the beginning of the town's civil rights protests in 1963.
16.
Marion Palfi photographed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee offices after they were burned down, went to the residence of Dewy Green, and met with activists.
17.
Marion Palfi additionally chronicled, in photography, the opening of Prince Edward County schools in 1964, and the end of Massive Resistance.
18.
Marion Palfi marched at Selma in 1965 with Martin Luther King Jr.
19.
Marion Palfi describes herself as a "social change photographer" and she believed that art could and should effect social change.
20.
Marion Palfi used her camera as a tool to show the public the problems within their own society to an attempt to incite a movement of change.
21.
Marion Palfi taught photography at the Inner-City Cultural Center in LA, before dying from breast cancer in 1978.