Marti Friedlander

Who is Marti Friedlander?

Marti Friedlander, CNZM is a New Zealand photographer.

Born in England to Russian Jewish immigrants, from the age of three she was raised in orphanages together with her sister Anne. She married Gerrard Friedlander, a New Zealander of German Jewish origin, in 1957 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1958. In New Zealand she worked as a nurse for her husband who worked as a dentist. After she lost their first child in 1963 she was spurred onwards to take photos of other children. As an outsider she found herself in a strange land, and began taking photographs to document and understand the country she had adopted.

Friedlander felt constrained by what she saw as New Zealand's conservativism compared to the lifestyle she had enjoyed, and documented and challenged this in her photography and social activism. Her work involved collaboration with Michael King while photographing Maori women and moko.

Friedlander has had exhibitions at a number of galleries. She was admitted as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1998, and was the subject of a documentary by Shirley Horrocks entitled Marti: the Passionate Eye.