Etel Fodor-Mittag

1928–1930 Bauhaus student / 1932 guest student

Portrait of Etel Fodor-Mittag (detail), Photo: Naftalie Avon (Rubinstein), 1929.
Portrait of Etel Fodor-Mittag (detail), Photo: Naftalie Avon (Rubinstein), 1929. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / unbekannt.
  • Born 28.12.1905 Zagreb, Austria-Hungary | Croatia
  • Died 13.8.2005 Kapstadt, South Africa

  • Birth Name Etel Fodor
  • Name after marriage Etel Fodor-Mittag


  • Professions Photographer, Weber

Before enrolling at the Bauhaus Etel Fodor-Mittag had studied at the private arts school Almos Jaschik and had been trained to be a trained commercial graphic artist a the Institute of Graphic Research and Education (Grafische Versuchs- und Lehranstalt) in Vienna. Upon the advice of Farkas Molnár she went to Bauhaus in Dessau to pick up her studies in the peliminary course by Josef Albers in September 1928. After accomplishing this obligatory course Fodor-Mittag changed to the printing and advertising workshop. In 1929 the first photography workshop was established, led by the Berlin based photographer Walter Peterhans, where the young woman started studying and learned basic photographic techniques as to bring her photographic talent to perfection.
At the Bauhaus Fodor-Mittag created first photographs – portraits of fellow students and friends – and still lifes. In 1930 Fodor married the Bauhaus architecture student Ernst Mittag. Following a difference of opinion with Peterhans, she left the Bauhaus at the age of 25 and started her own business as a photographer and commercial graphic artist, selling her photographs to the Jacobi photo studio in Berlin, among others. Later she worked in the same professional field in Budapest and, after her emigration in 1938, in South Africa. [AG 2015]

  1. Literature:
  2. Etel Fodor-Mittag (2014): Not an unusual Life, for the Time and the Place / Ein Leben, nicht einmal ungewöhnlich für diese Zeit und diesen Ort, Bauhäusler. Dokumente aus dem Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Bd. 3, Berlin.

Etel Fodor-Mittag

Bauhaus Dessau: Student

Main focus: Matriculation No. 280

Bauhaus Dessau: Student

Period: 10.1928–9.1932
Main focus: Grundlehre/Vorlehre (preliminary courses), Print workshop, Photo workshop

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