A founder of modern pictorial journalism. Photographic documentation collected by Lorant represents German history from the Bismarck era to the Nuremberg Trials (ca. 1871-1946). A smaller portion of the collection consists of stills from Lorant's silent films and personal photographs of himself, his friends, and family. Extensive correspondence from his American years primarily concerns book projects.

Stefan Lorant was born Lóránt Istvánt in Budapest on February 22, 1901. His father was director of Erdélyi, the largest photographic studio in Budapest. Lorant attended the Lutheran Evangelical Gymnasium and the Academy of Economics, where his classmates included Johnny von Neumann and Nobel laureates Eugene Wigner, Dennis Gábor, and Georg von Bekesy. Lorant began taking photographs with a postcard camera, progressed to portrait photos, and in 1914 started publishing photos in Budapest newspapers and magazines. (See Appendix B, Supplement to "I have lived six lives" for a checklist of these photos and other facets of his achievements.) In July 1916 he took movie stills for a film in Budapest. Later that year, a twenty-five line article that accompanied one of his photos became his first byline.

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