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Photography itself was no easy business in the nineteenth century. When Klösz began, there was only one process available to photographers, the wet collodion technique. In those days, one could not simply buy a roll of film in a corner shop. Photographers had to make the light-sensitive material themselves. The process was named after its greatest drawback; if the emulsion dried, it lost its light sensitivity. Thus the photographer had about ten minutes to make the plate, and expose and develop the picture. To make matters worse, the process involved the use of explosives and poisonous materials. Nor should we forget that the photographer had to work with cumbersome glass plates, not with the light and flexible film of today.

The first thing to be done was to clean the plate in nitric acid, then coat it with collodion. Collodion consisted of gun cotton dissolved in a mixture of alcohol and ether, both highly flammable, with the addition of silver iodide.

From this point on, things had to be done in the dark. The coated glass plate was sensitized in a solution of silver nitrate and placed in the plate holder.

The plate was exposed inside the camera and afterwards development began, once again in the dark. The developed plate was then fixed in a potassium cyanide solution. Despite being a highly poisonous substance, this chemical agent was common in the nineteenth century in photographers’ studios for thirty years. Now the plate was ready and the prints could be made.

Despite all its apparent dangers, this complex procedure could take place in a photographer’s studio relatively easily. The reason was that a studio included a darkroom, for those occasions when the photographer wanted to make portraits of his clients. But photographers also worked outside. In the history of Hungarian photography, György Klösz was among the first to supplement photo-graphy with pictures taken in the open air. On those occasions, however, he had to take the darkroom with him. He overcame this difficulty by planting the darkroom in a horse-drawn wagon which he could take with him on his journeys in the city and the countryside. This was standard procedure at the time. Photographers who were engaged in taking landscape photographs usually used a tent for this purpose. Samuel Bourne, the great nineteenth-century English photographer, was accompanied by a caravan of some forty men when he took his beautiful pictures of the Himalayas. Not only did he have to take the large and heavy glass plates and the camera, but also the tripod, the chemicals and the tent, as well as an abundance of food and other supplies. (It was rumoured that one porter was needed to carry the whisky.) Thus it is no exaggeration to say that nineteenth-century photographers who were bold enough to work outside were indeed pioneers.

So far the primary accomplishment attributed to György Klösz in the history of Hungarian photography has been the fact that he took photography out of the studio. Thus it is no surprise that his most famous pictures are those of Budapest, which were believed to have been lost for decades. They appeared for the first time in an album Budapest Anno..., published by Corvina Press in several editions since 1979. The rest of his pictures, however, were almost completely unknown to the general public. There was a huge number of these, dealing with virtually all the subjects that were of importance in the closing decades of the last century. Klösz photographed landscapes, floods, the construction and demolition of important buildings, factories, trains, machines, schools, national costumes, works of art and exhibitions, as well as making numerous portraits and group photos. His photographs enable us to picture the age exactly.

György Klösz was born in the city of Darmstadt in Germany, in 1844. In his birth certificate his name is given as Johann Georg Justus Kloess. His father was the secretary of the Chief Inspector of Schools in Hessen, working in Darmstadt. His mother was the daughter of a court paperhanger employed by the court of Hessen. Georg had eight brothers, several of whom became artisans, one going on to become the manager of the Heissische Ludwigs-Bahn, another was killed in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71, yet another emigrated to the United States. Georg went to school in Darmstadt, then moved to Lorsch to continue his studies in pharmacy. This, however, is not exceptional as the photographers of the time often started out as pharmacists, goldsmiths, painters or even as showmen.

It was only after finishing his pharmaceutical studies that Klösz started to become interested in photography. He moved to Vienna, where by chance it came to his knowledge that a local photographer, a certain Dr Heid, was looking for a partner to start up a studio in Pest. Heid was also born in Darmstadt, ten years before Klösz, so it is possible that he invited Klösz to Vienna in the first place. What is certain is that Klösz signed on as his partner—or, more likely, as his apprentice or assistant—and they left for Pest together. They also had a third companion, one F. Ronninger, another photographer from Vienna. At that time what later became Budapest was still three separate towns; Pest and Buda facing each other on both sides of the Danube, and Óbuda a little higher up on the right bank. Perhaps the three photographers left Vienna to escape competition. What we do know is that there were around forty photographic studios at that time in Pest.

Dr Heid and his team arrived in Pest in 1866 or 1867 and rented a portrait studio on the two upper floors of a three-story building in the inner city. The studio, on the corner of Korona Street and Úri Street, was well-known and had been rented by several photographers before. The first portraits were taken by Dr Heid and Ronninger, including one of Karolina Zeller, Klösz’s future wife. It appears, however, that Heid and Ronninger soon returned to Vienna and from that time on, the studio ran under the name of György Klösz. His decision to stay in Pest was probably influenced by his relationship with Karolina Zeller. They married in 1870. Of their eight children, only three survived into adulthood.

Klösz continued his work in the studio. It seems that he was successful as the serial numbers on his pictures climb into the tens of thousands in a matter of a few years. It was at this time that enterprising photographers like him took the bold step of leaving the studio, despite the obvious dangers and complications posed by the wet-collodion process. Klösz purchased a horse-drawn wagon to house his darkroom. Unfortunately, no picture of the wagon itself survives, but a small part of it is visible on one of his earliest townscapes, bearing the inscription Georg Klösz, Fotograf. Exactly when he started taking pictures outside the studio is uncertain, but it must have been sometime at the start of the 1870s.

This was the time when Klösz began his ever-expanding series on Budapest, which provide us with an accurate idea of the city at that time. The three towns were unified to form the capital city of Budapest in 1873. The construction of huge buildings began. This gave Klösz a wonderful opportunity: he photographed the old and the new buildings alike. All in all, he took around 260 pictures of Budapest during the 1870s. In order to make prints of these, Klösz needed more space, and so he moved to a new and larger studio in 1872.

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Not only did Klösz continue taking portraits and his Budapest series at this time, his commissions also started to pick up. Between 1875 and 1877 he was commissioned to photograph the construction of the Western Railway Terminal, designed by Eiffel Associates, as a series of fine pictures. He had the date carved into almost every glass plate, so even today we can follow the different stages of construction almost day to day. Another order he received was to photograph the horse-drawn trams of Budapest, which he did in an equally wonderful series.

The pictures he took of floods in the 1870s also form a significant ensemble; all in all, he photographed five floods; in Buda and Pest in 1875 and 1876, in Miskolc and Eger in 1878 and in Szeged in 1879. Floods and other natural disasters were tragic but common occurrences in those days, and they were considered worth photographing. The same was true of serious accidents. Thus, Klösz was called on to photograph a railway accident at Stubnya. Of the flood pictures, those taken in Szeged are the most interesting. They survive in several different formats and sizes. On this occasion, Klösz set up the tent housing his darkroom in a small boat. It is apparent from the photographs that the camera was always set up on the ruins of houses. A relatively long time, two or three seconds, was required to expose the plates. The people photographed often moved within this time, causing the image to be blurred. We can also observe that whenever Klösz photographed boats, he always had them tied up to try and stop them from moving.

The year 1879 brought another milestone to Klösz that had a significant effect on his later work. Until then, he had only been engaged in photography and the publishing of his pictures—in 1879, however, he began to use the technique of photolithography. This method is related to photography because it also uses light-sensitive emulsions, but in effect it is a printing process, and as such it could still not be used to print photographs. Klösz therefore used it to print maps. This was the start of a new occupation, which was to reach its peak in the work of his son Pál in the twentieth century. For Klösz, this step meant the creation of an ever-expanding company. It became increasingly evident that he would be unable to pursue all the various activities himself. We have no knowledge of how many workers his firm employed, but we may presume that dozens were required to work on all the different jobs.

The onset of the 1880s brought still further diversification for Klösz. It was at this time that a new technique using dry plates appeared. Thus far, photo- graphers were forced to work with wet plates, which meant that they had to prepare the light-sensitive plate directly before exposure. But dry plates could be purchased ready-made, well in advance. What is more, they could be taken back to the darkroom after exposure to be developed. This was a huge step forward. It is understandable, however, that photographers who were used to working in the old way distrusted the new technique at first, and for a short time they took pictures using both methods.

Klösz was the first distributor of dry plates in Hungary. Manufactured by

Dr Heid in Vienna, they could be ordered in Klösz’s studio in Hatvani Street. Using the new technology, Klösz began a new series of photographs of the capital. From this time on, he called the first series "Pictures of Old Budapest", and the second one, which he continued well into the 1890s, "Pictures of New Budapest". This series is very interesting because the new plates were not only easier to work with, they were also much more sensitive. The photographs taken in the 1870s all seem very static; there are rarely any people in the pictures, and if there are, their image is usually blurred. Since greater sensitivity meant a shorter exposure time, we see streets bustling with people on photographs taken in the 1880s. The images are clear, even if there is movement. Street scenes such as these would have been unimaginable in the time of the old process.

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After the ceremony was over, work continued for Klösz and company. In 1895 and 1896 the greatest task was to prepare for the grand exhibition organized on the millennium of the Hungarian conquest. Klösz was called on to photograph the train given to Francis Joseph as a present by the Ganz engineering works for him to travel on to the exhibition. It consisted of seven cars and Klösz photographed it using the largest possible size, the 40 by 50 cm glass plates. The pictures were then placed in a 50 by 70 cm ornamented box. Klösz also photographed the construction, the cars and the staff of the first underground line, which was opened for the millennium. This was the second underground line built in Europe after London and the first in continental Europe.

The Millennial Exhibition was open for six months in temporary pavilions in the Városliget in Pest, not far from Klösz’s studio. He also photographed the erection of the group of statues depicting the most important Hungarian historical figures in Heroes’ Square, as well as the construction of nearby Vajdahunyad Castle, which still stands in Városliget.

To photograph the exhibition, the best eight photographers from Budapest formed a co-operative with Klösz as president. It is interesting that while hardly any pictures by the others survive, numerous of Klösz’s have. All in all, he took nearly 700 large pictures. Unfortunately, almost a hundred of these have been lost, but the vision provided by the rest is remarkable. There were hardly any details of which he did not take pictures: the exteriors and interiors of the pavilions, the individual stands of the different firms and exhibitors, Captain Godard’s balloon, the newly set up Hungarian ambulance service, everything right down to the public conveniences. He also made a series in stereo size, one of them depicting the small pavilion where his firm was selling the photographs.

With the opening of his new studio and printing press and with the success and prizes won at the Millennial Exhibition, Klösz reached a peak. He was one of the best-known photographers in the country, employing forty people in his new studio. His third large villa was under construction in Balatonföldvár, and in 1898 he commissioned the building of a three-story apartment block on the section of his Budapest property reaching down to Damjanich Street. The flats were meant for his children and for renting.

Klösz’s company was always kept busy with both photography and printing orders, and he himself was commissioned to undertake several more large-scale projects, but the successes of 1896 always remained as the high point. It was also at this time that Klösz received the honorary title of Imperial and Royal (k. und k.) Court Photographer.

His last great accomplishment in the nineteenth-century was to photograph the chateaux and country houses of the Hungarian aristocracy. Besides publishing it, Klösz’s intention was to show this new series at the Paris World Fair in 1900.

All in all, Klösz took 430 pictures of 100 mansions owned by 65 aristocratic families. Some he photographed in detail, devoting no more than a single take to others. When he took more than one picture, he always photographed both the front and back, and in some cases the gardens and the interior as well. The sequence of pictures taken at different locations shows that he visited all the important mansions in the country. He went to every region in the country and took pictures in more than 30 counties. It is difficult to determine how Klösz chose his locations. Some well-known and relatively unknown mansions are included, whilst some others that would have been obvious choices have been left out.

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