Lucien Aigner (14 September 1901 – 29 March 1999) was a Hungarian photojournalist.
Early life
Lucien Aigner was born on 14 September 1901 in Érsekújvár as Jenő Aigner (F:Adolf Aigner, M: Karola Stern), Austria-Hungary (now called Nové Zámky in Slovakia).
His first camera, a Brownie, was acquired when he was nine years old and he used it to photograph his family.
Career
Initially earning a law degree, By 1926, Aigner was a reporter for the Hungarian newspaper Az Est, and soon became a photographer with them. During this time, Aigner started using a Leica camera.
From 1927 to 1939, Aigner was the chief of Az Est<nowiki/>'s Paris bureau. During this time he also freelanced for several other publications such as Vu, L'illustration, Picture Post, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung and Münchner Illustrierte.
During his career Aigner's work was most often focused on political events that led up to the Second World War. He was the Paris correspondent of the London General Press at the Stresa Conference of 1935, where Aigner photographed Benito Mussolini, who was about to sneeze as the picture was taken. The photo made the cover of Newsweek in 1940, and established Aigner as a photojournalist. In 1939, he emigrated from France to the United States to escape Nazi persecution.
After his arrival he settled in New York, where Aigner continued his work as a freelancer, working for publications such as Christian Science Monitor and th New York Times.