János Reismann was born on 8 July 1905 in Szombathely in a Jewish family of intellectuals. At the age of 20, he emigrated to Paris, where he started working as a photographer's assistant. During this time he got to know some of the most famous artists and influential intellectual trends of the time. With his own career as a photographer booming, he went to Berlin, where he was also surrounded by the intellectual and artistic elite of the time. He then worked for seven years as a photojournalist in the Soviet Union before returning to Paris, where he broadened his horizons with Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard and Vercors, and became a member of the Communist Party. Only in 1945 he returned to Hungary, where he continued his career as an editor and photojournalist.

In 1948 he exhibited with Robert Capa in Rome and became a photographer for the Magnum agency. In the same year he was arrested in connection with the Rajk trial, spent five years in prison, and then after his release, he continued to work as a reporter and traveled a lot throughout Europe.

Reismann was one of the most important photographers of his time, with great energy, vitality and insight, but the turbulent years of history intervened, as much of his oeuvre was lost or destroyed so only a fragment of his works is known.

This exhibition at PaperLab Gallery presents a selection of photographs taken by János Reismann in Sardinia in 1959. At the time, together with the Italian painter and writer Carlo Levi, who also followed the progressive trends of the time, they produced a joint publication entitled Eternal Italy.

The exhibition is free to visit.