Zoltán Glass


Zoltán Glass was a Hungarian photographer. He was one of the renown photographers of the 20th century.
Born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on 26 April 1903, to Reszon and Olga Glass, a Jewish couple.
In 1925 Glass started working as a cartoonist and retoucher. In 1931 he moved to Berlin where he established himself as a photographer, working first as a picture editor of a Berlin evening paper, the 5-8 Uhr Abendblatt, and then, as a photojournalist at the Berliner Tagblatt. A keen motorsport enthusiast, Glass covered most of the big races at the Nürburgring and the Avus circuits. His photos of the Mercedes-Benz team received widespread public acclaim. However, in 1936 he was dismissed from the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt due to his Jewish ancestry. In 1938 he fled Germany, bringing his negatives to London.
During his London period Glass had a second career as a fashion and glamour photographer. Pamela Green, who also posed for his brother, was one of his regular models. Some of his work appeared in Lilliput, the Daily Mirror and Life. He also worked as a stills photographer for film director Zoltan Korda, brother of Alexander Korda. Zoltán had his own studios at 183 Kings Road, Chelsea, and later at 41 Paradise Walk, SW3.
Zoltán Glass eventually sold his Chelsea studio to a consortium of British photographers, after which he moved to the French Riviera. He offered his collection of pin-up photography to George Harrison Marks, who strangely turned him down. He died in 1982 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in France.
His brother, Stephen Glass, was also a noted photographer.