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November 14, 2016
Sensitive photographer of moko Marti Friedlander dies
Waatea Team
Posted On November 14, 2016
Marti Friedlander, whose photographs of New Zealand life included a classic record of kuia who carried the moko through the mid-20th century, has died in Auckland aged 88.
Friedlander was born Martha Gordon in London in 1928 and grew up in a Jewish orphanage for the age of three.
After attending Camberwell School of Art and working as an assistant to leading fashion photographer Gordon Crocker, she married New Zealander Gerrard Friedlander in 1957.
She started working as freelance in 1964, but credited her collaboration with writer Michael King on his 1972 book Moko for making her name as a photographer.
She says the project was highlight of her career and it was an enormous privilege to be able to photograph the kuia in their homes and places they were comfortable in, rather than setting up formal portraits.
She and her husband endowed an Arts Foundation scholarship for photographers.
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