Portrait of Lili Kraus

Frank Hofmann was an influential photographer, both commercially and artistically, who introduced interwar European modernist ideas and practices to New Zealand. Born in Prague in 1916, Hofmann (who was Jewish) escaped to England after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and emigrated to Christchurch in 1940 where he established himself as a freelance photographer.

Hofmann's work explores the camera's capacity to express heightened emotions and a contemporary essence, drawing on techniques that were pivotal to the modern photography movements of the 1920s and 1930s. His images frequently employ ambiguity, a lyrical interplay of line, shape, light and shadow, strange angles, and above all a transformation of the ordinary.

Pianist Lili Kraus (1903-1986) was born in Budapest and enrolled at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. At the age of 17, she entered the Budapest Conservatory where she studied with Zoltán Kodály, and Béla Bartók. In the 1930s, she continued her studies in Vienna and Berlin, an expert in Beethoven and Mozart. After the war, Kraus settled in New Zealand, and spent many years performing, and teaching. She became a New Zealand citizen and resumed her career, teaching and touring extensively.

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