MARTI FRIEDLANDER Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1928 -

The cameras I have used over the years have been many and varied. While they have been useful tools for taking the photos, it is the printing of the images that sustains the excitement for me. It never ceases to be a revelation to see the negative, and to make from it a photo that holds the mystery of a vanished moment. For all the people who appear in my photos, known to me or otherwise, I have a special affinity, a feeling of a shared moment captured forever.

Marti Friedlander has had a long career as a photographer. Her subjects have been diverse; portraiture, rural, urban and suburban scenes and encounters, both in New Zealand and other places in which she has lived or visited.

Marti Friedlander was born in London and spent her childhood in a Jewish orphanage. She won a trade scholarship at age 14 and studied photography. From 1946-57, she worked as a photographic assistant in a portrait and fashion studio in Kensington. She married New Zealander Gerrard Friedlander in 1957 and came to live in New Zealand in 1958.

The first New Zealand photo Marti took was in 1960 at Auckland's Myers Park during a protest meeting opposing the All Blacks going to South Africa, featuring the banner 'I'm all white Jack'. The print was bought by the BBC for their series on Rugby..


Marti found settling in New Zealand very difficult and missed the excitement of living and working in central London.She was aware however, that New Zealand was on the edge of change, and made it her commitment to record this change.

She began working as a freelance photographer in 1964 and traveled throughout New Zealand.

She is well known for her work in the books: Moko: Maori Tattooing in the 20th Century (1972) with Michael King; Larks in a Paradise (1974) with James McNeish; Contemporary New Zealand Painters A-M (1980) with Jim and Mary Barr; Pioneers of New Zealand Wine (2002) with Dick Scott and Marti Friedlander: Photographs (2001) with Ron Brownson and Marti Friedlander with Prof. Leonard Bell (2009).

In 1999, Marti was awarded the Companion of NZ Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to photography. Her book Marti Friedlander: Photographs (with Ron Brownson) was shortlisted at the 2001 Montana Book Awards.

Her work has been exhibited at the Photographers' Gallery in London, the Waikato Art Museum, and in a large and celebrated retrospective at the Auckland Art Gallery in 2001, which was a comprehensive survey exhibition of Marti's's work. The exhibition toured New Zealand galleries in 2002. This show brought together an extensive range of photographs created over a period of 40 years.