André Kertész
Encyclopedia
André Kertész born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian
-born photographer
known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition
and the photo essay
. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism
.
Expected by his family to work as a stock broker
, Kertész pursued photography independently as an autodidact
, and his early work was published primarily in magazine
s, a major market in those years. This continued until much later in his life, when Kertész stopped accepting commissions. He served briefly in World War I and moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family. In Paris he worked for France's first illustrated magazine called VU. Involved with many young immigrant artists and the Dada
movement, he achieved critical and commercial success.
Due to German
persecution of the Jews and the threat of World War II
, Kertész decided to emigrate to the United States in 1936, where he had to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. In the 1940s and 1950s, he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. His career is generally divided into four periods, based on where he was working and his work was most prominently known. They are called the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, toward the end of his life, the International period.
to the middle-class Jewish family of Lipót Kertész, a bookseller, and his wife, Ernesztin Hoffmann. Andor, known as "Bandi" to his friends, was the middle child of three sons, including Imre and Jenő. When Lipót died in 1908 from tuberculosis
, the widowed Ernesztin was without a source of income to support their three children. Ernesztin's brother, Lipót Hoffmann, provided for the family and acted much like a father to the boys. The family soon moved to Hoffman's country property in Szigetbecse
. Kertész grew up in a leisurely pace of life and pastoral
setting that would shape his later career path.
Hoffman paid for his middle nephew's business classes at the Academy of Commerce until his 1912 graduation, and arranged his hiring by the stock exchange
soon after. Unlike his older brother Imre, who worked at the exchange in Budapest for all his life, Kertész had little interest in the field. He was drawn to illustrated magazines and to activities like fishing and swimming in the Danube River near his uncle's property.
Kertész's first encounters with magazine photography inspired him to learn photography. He was also influenced by certain paintings by Lajos Tihanyi and Gyula Zilzer, as well as by poetry.
(the puszta). His first photograph is believed to be "Sleeping Boy, Budapest, 1912". His photographs were first published in 1917 in the magazine Érdekes Újság, during World War I
, while Kertész was serving in the Austro-Hungarian
army; they were first published. As early as 1914 (for example, "Eugene, 1914"), his distinctive and mature style was already evident.
In 1914, at the age of 20, he was sent to the frontline, where he took photographs of life in the trenches
with a lightweight camera (a Goerz
Tenax). Most of these photographs were destroyed during the violence of the Hungarian Revolution of 1919
. Wounded in 1915 by a bullet, Kertész suffered temporary paralysis of his right arm.
He was sent for convalescence to a military hospital in Budapest, but was later transferred to Esztergom
, where he continued to take photographs. These included a self-portrait
for a competition in the magazine Borsszem Jankó. His most famous piece of this period was "Underwater Swimmer, Esztergom, 1917", the only surviving work of a series of a swimmer whose image is distorted by the water. Kertész explored the subject more thoroughly in his series of "Distortions" photographs during the early 1930s.
Kertész did not heal soon enough to return to combat, and with peace in 1918, he returned to the stock exchange. There he met his future wife Erzsebet Salomon (later changed to Elizabeth Saly), who also worked at the exchange. He began to pursue her romantically. During this period of work and throughout his whole career, he used Elizabeth as a model
for his photographs. Kertesz also took numerous photographs of his brother Jenő. Kertész left his career at the exchange to try agricultural work and beekeeping
during the early 1920s. This venture was brief given the political turmoil that accompanied the revolution and coming of communism.
After returning to the stock exchange, Kertesz decided to emigrate, to study at one of France's photographic schools. His mother dissuaded him, and he did not emigrate for several years. Working during the day at the exchange, he pursued photography the rest of the time.
In 1923, the Hungarian Amateur Photographer's Association selected one of his photographs for its silver award, on the condition that he print it by the bromoil
process. Kertész disliked this, so turned down the medal. Instead, he was given a diploma from the association. On its 26 June 1925, the Hungarian news magazine Érdekes Újság used one of his photographs for its cover, giving him widespread publicity. By that time, Kertész was determined to photograph the sites in Paris and join its artistic culture.
Kertész emigrated to Paris in September 1925, leaving behind his mother, his unofficial fiancee Elizabeth, both brothers, and his uncle Hoffman, who died shortly afterward. Jenő later emigrated to Argentina
. Elizabeth Kertész remained until her future husband was well enough established in Paris that they could marry. Kertész was among numerous Hungarian artists who emigrated during these decades, including François Kollar, Robert Capa
, Emeric Fehér, Brassaï
, and Julia Bathory
. Man Ray
, Germaine Krull
and Lucien Aigner
also emigrated to Paris during this period.
Initially Kertész took on commissioned work for several European magazines, gaining publication of his work in Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain. Soon after arriving in Paris, Kertész changed his first name to André, which he kept for the rest of his life. In Paris he found critical and commercial success. In 1927 Kertész was the first photographer to have a one-man exhibition; Jan Slivinsky presented 30 of his photographs at the "Sacre du Printemps Gallery". Kertesz had become connected with members of the growing Dada
movement. Paul Dermée dubbed him "Brother Seer" and "Brother Seeing Eye" during his first solo exhibit, alluding to a medieval monastery
where all the monks were blind bar one. Over the next years, Kertész was featured in both solo exhibits and group shows. In 1932 at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York
, the price of Kertész's proofs
was set at US$20 ($ in ), a large sum of money during the Great Depression
.
Kertész and other Hungarian artists formed a synergistic circle; he was featured in exhibits with some of them later in his life. Visiting his sculptor friends, he was fascinated by the Cubism
movement. He created photo portraits of painters Piet Mondrian
and Marc Chagall
, the writer Colette
, and film-maker Sergei Eisenstein
. In 1928, Kertész switched from using plate-glass cameras to a Leica. This period of work was one of his most productive; he was photographing daily, with work divided between magazine commissions through the late 1920s and his personal pieces. In 1930, at the Exposition Coloniale in Paris, Kertész was awarded a silver medal for services to photography.
Kertész was published in French magazines such as Vu and Art et Médecine, for which his work was used for numerous covers. His greatest journalistic collaboration was with Lucien Vogel, the French editor and publisher of Vu. Vogel published his work as photo essays, letting Kertész report on various subjects through images. The photographer was intrigued with the variety of topics assigned by Vogel.
In 1933 Kertész was commissioned for the series, Distortion, about 200 photographs of Najinskaya Verackhatz and Nadia Kasine, two models portrayed nude and in various poses, with their reflections caught in a combination of distortion mirrors, similar to a carnival's house of mirrors
. In some photographs, only certain limbs or features were visible in the reflection. Some images also appeared in the 2 March issue of the "girly magazine" Le Sourire and in the 15 September 1933 issue of Arts et métiers graphiques. Later that year, Kertész published the book Distortions, a collection of the work.
In 1933 Kertesz published his first personal book of photographs, Enfants, dedicated to his fiancee Elizabeth and his mother, who had died that year. He published regularly during the succeeding years. Paris (1934) was dedicated to his brothers Imre and Jenő. Nos Amies les bêtes (Our Friends the Animals) was released in 1936 and Les Cathédrales du vin ("The Cathedrals of Wine") in 1937.
In 1930, he ventured back to Hungary to visit his family. After his return to Paris, Elizabeth followed him in 1931, despite opposition by her family. Elizabeth and André remained together for the rest of their lives. Despite his mother's dying in early 1933, Kertész married Elizabeth on 17 June 1933. He was said to have spent less time with his artist friends in favor his new wife.
In 1936 they emigrated to New York, where within a decade, they became naturalized citizens. After creating and running a successful cosmetic business for years, in 1977 Elizabeth died of cancer.
bound for Manhattan
.
The couple arrived in New York on 15 October 1936, with Kertész intent on finding fame in America. They lived at the Beaux Arts Hotel in Greenwich Village
. Kertész found life in America more difficult than he had imagined, beginning a period which he later referred to as the "absolute tragedy". Deprived of his artist friends, he also found that Americans rejected having their photos taken on the street. Soon after his arrival, Kertész approached Beaumont Newhall
, director of the photographic department at the Museum of Modern Art
(MOMA), who was preparing a show entitled Photography 1839–1937. Offering Newhall some of his Distortions photographs, Kertesz bristled at his criticism, but Newhall did exhibit the photographs. In December 1937 Kertész had his first solo show in New York at the PM Gallery.
The Keystone agency, who had offered him offsite work, required him to stay in the company's studio. Kertész tried to return to France to visit, but had no money. By the time he had saved enough, World War II had begun and travel to France was nearly impossible. His struggles with English compounded his problems. Years after learning to speak French in Paris, it was difficult for him to learn another new language. The lack of fluent language added to his feeling like an outsider.
Frustrated, Kertész left Keystone after Prince left the company in 1937. He was commissioned by Harper's Bazaar
for an article on the Saks Fifth Avenue
department store in their April 1937 issue. The magazine continued to use him in further issues, and he also took commissions from Town and Country
to supplement his income. Vogue
invited the photographer to work for the magazine, but he declined, believing it was not appropriate work for him. He chose to work for Life
magazine, starting with a piece called The Tugboat. Despite orders, he photographed more than just tugboats, including works on the entire harbor and its activities. Life refused to publish the unauthorized photographs. Kertész resented the constraints on his curiosity.
In 25 October 1938, Look
printed a series of Kertesz photographs, entitled A Fireman Goes to School; but credited them mistakenly to Ernie Prince, his former boss. Infuriated, Kertész considered never working with photo magazines again. His work was published in the magazine Coronet
in 1937, but in 1939 he was excluded when the magazine published a special issue featuring its "Most memorable photographs". He later severed all ties to the magazine and its editor Arnold Gingrich
. After being excluded from the June 1941 issue of Vogue, dedicated to photography, Kertesz broke off relations with them. He had contributed to more than 30 commissioned photo essays and articles in both Vogue and House and Garden, but was omitted from the list of featured photographers.
In 1941, the Kertesz couple were designated as enemy aliens because of World War II (Hungary was fighting on the side of the Axis powers). Kertész was not permitted to photograph outdoors or to have any project related to national security. Trying to avoid trouble because Elizabeth had started a cosmetics company (Cosmia Laboratories), Kertész ceased to do commissioned work and essentially disappeared from the photographic world for three years.
On 20 January 1944, Elizabeth became a US citizen; and Kertész was naturalized on 3 February. Despite competition from photographers such as Irving Penn
, Kertész regained commissioned work. He was omitted from the list of 63 photographers which Vogue's identified as significant in its "photographic genealogical tree". But, House and Garden commissioned him to do photographs for a Christmas issue. In addition, in June 1944 László Moholy-Nagy
, director of the New Bauhaus - American School of Design
offered him a position teaching photography. Despite the honor, he turned the offer down.
In 1945, Kertesz released a new book, Day of Paris, made up of photographs taken just before his emigration from France. It gained critical success. With his wife's cosmetic business booming, Kertész agreed in 1946 to a long-term, exclusive contract with House and Garden. Although it restricted his editorial freedom and required many hours in the studio, the pay of at least US$10,000 per annum ($ per year in ) was satisfactory. All photographic negatives were returned to him within six months for his own use.
Kertész worked in the settings of many famous homes and notable places, as well as overseas, where he traveled again in England, Budapest and Paris, renewing friendships and making new ones. During the 1945-1962 period at House and Garden, the magazine published more than 3,000 of his photographs, and he created a high reputation in the industry. With little time for his personal work, Kertész felt starved of being able to exercise more artistic creativity.
_and_andr_kertsz_in_1975_b.jpg)
In 1946, Kertész had a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago
, featuring photographs from his Day of Paris series. Kertész said this was one of his greatest times in the United States. In 1952, he and his wife moved to a 12th-floor apartment near Washington Square Park, the setting for some of his best photographs since having immigrated to the US. Using a telephoto lens
, he took a series of snow-covered Washington Square, showing numerous silhouettes and tracks. In 1955 he was insulted to have his work excluded when Edward Steichen
's The Family of Man
show was featured at MOMA. Despite the success of the Chicago show, Kertesz did not gain another exhibit until 1962, when his photographs were shown at Long Island University
.
. He later visited Argentina to see his younger brother Jenő for the first time in years.
In 1964, soon after John Szarkowski
became the photography director at the Museum of Modern Art, he featured Kertész in a solo show. With his work critically acclaimed, Kertesz gained recognition in the photographic world as an important artist.
The work of Kertész was featured in numerous exhibitions throughout the world in his later life, even into his early nineties. Due to his newfound success, in 1965 Kertész was appointed as a member of the American Society of Media Photographers
.
His awards rapidly accumulated:
During this period, Kertész produced a number of new books. He was able to recover some of the negatives he had left in France decades before.
Despite his successes, Kertész still felt unrecognised as a photographer. His last years were spent travelling to various locations around the globe for his exhibitions, especially Japan, and rekindling friendships with other artists. To deal with the loss of his wife in 1977, Kertész fell back on his new network of friends, often visiting them to talk. By this time, he was said to have learned basic English and talked in what his friends called "Kertészian", a mixture of Hungarian, English and French.
In 1979, the Polaroid Corporation
gave him one of their new SX-70 cameras, which he experimented with into the 1980s. Still growing in fame, Kertész was granted the National Grand Prize of Photography in Paris in 1982, as well as the 21st Annual George Washington Award from the American Hungarian Foundation the same year. His dealer, Susan Harder, was active in promoting recognition of his contributions to the history of photography.
Kertész died peacefully in his sleep at home on 28 September 1985; he was cremated and his ashes were interred with those of his wife.
Although Kertész rarely received bad reviews, it was the lack of them that lead to the photographer feeling distant from recognition. Now, however, he is often considered to be the father of photojournalism. Even other photographers cite Kertész and his photographs as being inspirational; Henri Cartier-Bresson
once said of him in the early 1930s, "We all owe him a great deal".
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
-born photographer
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition
Composition (visual arts)
In the visual arts – in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture – composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work...
and the photo essay
Photo essay
A photo-essay is a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer. A photo essay will often show pictures in deep emotional stages. Photo essays range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text...
. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism
Photojournalism
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
.
Expected by his family to work as a stock broker
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
, Kertész pursued photography independently as an autodidact
Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...
, and his early work was published primarily in magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s, a major market in those years. This continued until much later in his life, when Kertész stopped accepting commissions. He served briefly in World War I and moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family. In Paris he worked for France's first illustrated magazine called VU. Involved with many young immigrant artists and the Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
movement, he achieved critical and commercial success.
Due to German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
persecution of the Jews and the threat of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Kertész decided to emigrate to the United States in 1936, where he had to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. In the 1940s and 1950s, he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. His career is generally divided into four periods, based on where he was working and his work was most prominently known. They are called the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, toward the end of his life, the International period.
Early life and education
Andor Kertész was born on 2 July 1894 in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
to the middle-class Jewish family of Lipót Kertész, a bookseller, and his wife, Ernesztin Hoffmann. Andor, known as "Bandi" to his friends, was the middle child of three sons, including Imre and Jenő. When Lipót died in 1908 from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, the widowed Ernesztin was without a source of income to support their three children. Ernesztin's brother, Lipót Hoffmann, provided for the family and acted much like a father to the boys. The family soon moved to Hoffman's country property in Szigetbecse
Szigetbecse
-References:...
. Kertész grew up in a leisurely pace of life and pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
setting that would shape his later career path.
Hoffman paid for his middle nephew's business classes at the Academy of Commerce until his 1912 graduation, and arranged his hiring by the stock exchange
Stock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...
soon after. Unlike his older brother Imre, who worked at the exchange in Budapest for all his life, Kertész had little interest in the field. He was drawn to illustrated magazines and to activities like fishing and swimming in the Danube River near his uncle's property.
Kertész's first encounters with magazine photography inspired him to learn photography. He was also influenced by certain paintings by Lajos Tihanyi and Gyula Zilzer, as well as by poetry.
Hungarian period
After earning enough money, Kertész quickly bought his first camera (an ICA box camera) in 1912, despite his family's protests to continue his career in business. In his free time, he photographed the local peasants, gypsies, and landscape of the surrounding Hungarian PlainsGreat Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain is a plain occupying the southern and eastern part of Hungary, some parts of the Eastern Slovak Lowland, southwestern Ukraine, the Transcarpathian Lowland , western Romania , northern Serbia , and eastern Croatia...
(the puszta). His first photograph is believed to be "Sleeping Boy, Budapest, 1912". His photographs were first published in 1917 in the magazine Érdekes Újság, during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, while Kertész was serving in the Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
army; they were first published. As early as 1914 (for example, "Eugene, 1914"), his distinctive and mature style was already evident.
In 1914, at the age of 20, he was sent to the frontline, where he took photographs of life in the trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
with a lightweight camera (a Goerz
Goerz (company)
C. P. Goerz was founded in 1886 by Carl Paul Goerz. Originally, it made geometrical drawing instruments for schools. From 1888 it made cameras and lenses. During the First World War, Goerz's main production was for the German and Austrian military. Goerz is known primarily for Anschuetz...
Tenax). Most of these photographs were destroyed during the violence of the Hungarian Revolution of 1919
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
. Wounded in 1915 by a bullet, Kertész suffered temporary paralysis of his right arm.
He was sent for convalescence to a military hospital in Budapest, but was later transferred to Esztergom
Esztergom
Esztergom , is a city in northern Hungary, 46 km north-west of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom county, on the right bank of the river Danube, which forms the border with Slovakia there....
, where he continued to take photographs. These included a self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
for a competition in the magazine Borsszem Jankó. His most famous piece of this period was "Underwater Swimmer, Esztergom, 1917", the only surviving work of a series of a swimmer whose image is distorted by the water. Kertész explored the subject more thoroughly in his series of "Distortions" photographs during the early 1930s.
Kertész did not heal soon enough to return to combat, and with peace in 1918, he returned to the stock exchange. There he met his future wife Erzsebet Salomon (later changed to Elizabeth Saly), who also worked at the exchange. He began to pursue her romantically. During this period of work and throughout his whole career, he used Elizabeth as a model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
for his photographs. Kertesz also took numerous photographs of his brother Jenő. Kertész left his career at the exchange to try agricultural work and beekeeping
Beekeeping
Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect honey and other products of the hive , to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers...
during the early 1920s. This venture was brief given the political turmoil that accompanied the revolution and coming of communism.
After returning to the stock exchange, Kertesz decided to emigrate, to study at one of France's photographic schools. His mother dissuaded him, and he did not emigrate for several years. Working during the day at the exchange, he pursued photography the rest of the time.
In 1923, the Hungarian Amateur Photographer's Association selected one of his photographs for its silver award, on the condition that he print it by the bromoil
Bromoil Process
The Bromoil Process was an early photographic process that was very popular with the Pictorialists during the first half of the twentieth century...
process. Kertész disliked this, so turned down the medal. Instead, he was given a diploma from the association. On its 26 June 1925, the Hungarian news magazine Érdekes Újság used one of his photographs for its cover, giving him widespread publicity. By that time, Kertész was determined to photograph the sites in Paris and join its artistic culture.
French period
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. Elizabeth Kertész remained until her future husband was well enough established in Paris that they could marry. Kertész was among numerous Hungarian artists who emigrated during these decades, including François Kollar, Robert Capa
Robert Capa
Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War...
, Emeric Fehér, Brassaï
Brassaï
Brassaï was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars...
, and Julia Bathory
Julia Bathory
Júlia Báthory was a Hungarian glass designer.Júlia Báthory was born in 1901 in Budapest into an aristocratic family. She pursued her high school studies in Debrecen and Budapest...
. Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, Germaine Krull
Germaine Krull
Germaine Krull , was a photographer, political activist, and hotel owner. Her nationality has been categorized as German, Polish, French, and Dutch, but she spent years in Brazil, Republic of the Congo, Thailand, and India...
and Lucien Aigner
Lucien Aigner
Lucien Aigner was a Hungarian photographer and pioneering photojournalist. He was born in Érsekújvár, Austria-Hungary and died inWaltham, Massachusetts....
also emigrated to Paris during this period.
Initially Kertész took on commissioned work for several European magazines, gaining publication of his work in Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain. Soon after arriving in Paris, Kertész changed his first name to André, which he kept for the rest of his life. In Paris he found critical and commercial success. In 1927 Kertész was the first photographer to have a one-man exhibition; Jan Slivinsky presented 30 of his photographs at the "Sacre du Printemps Gallery". Kertesz had become connected with members of the growing Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
movement. Paul Dermée dubbed him "Brother Seer" and "Brother Seeing Eye" during his first solo exhibit, alluding to a medieval monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
where all the monks were blind bar one. Over the next years, Kertész was featured in both solo exhibits and group shows. In 1932 at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the price of Kertész's proofs
Artist's proof
An artist's proof is, at least in theory, an impression of a print taken in the printmaking process to see the current printing state of a plate while the plate is being worked on by the artist...
was set at US$20 ($ in ), a large sum of money during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Kertész and other Hungarian artists formed a synergistic circle; he was featured in exhibits with some of them later in his life. Visiting his sculptor friends, he was fascinated by the Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
movement. He created photo portraits of painters Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
and Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, the writer Colette
Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...
, and film-maker Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
. In 1928, Kertész switched from using plate-glass cameras to a Leica. This period of work was one of his most productive; he was photographing daily, with work divided between magazine commissions through the late 1920s and his personal pieces. In 1930, at the Exposition Coloniale in Paris, Kertész was awarded a silver medal for services to photography.
Kertész was published in French magazines such as Vu and Art et Médecine, for which his work was used for numerous covers. His greatest journalistic collaboration was with Lucien Vogel, the French editor and publisher of Vu. Vogel published his work as photo essays, letting Kertész report on various subjects through images. The photographer was intrigued with the variety of topics assigned by Vogel.
In 1933 Kertész was commissioned for the series, Distortion, about 200 photographs of Najinskaya Verackhatz and Nadia Kasine, two models portrayed nude and in various poses, with their reflections caught in a combination of distortion mirrors, similar to a carnival's house of mirrors
House of mirrors
A house of mirrors or hall of mirrors is a traditional attraction at funfairs and amusement parks. The basic concept behind a house of mirrors is to be a maze-like puzzle. In addition to the maze, participants are also given mirrors as obstacles, and glass panes to parts of the maze they cannot...
. In some photographs, only certain limbs or features were visible in the reflection. Some images also appeared in the 2 March issue of the "girly magazine" Le Sourire and in the 15 September 1933 issue of Arts et métiers graphiques. Later that year, Kertész published the book Distortions, a collection of the work.
In 1933 Kertesz published his first personal book of photographs, Enfants, dedicated to his fiancee Elizabeth and his mother, who had died that year. He published regularly during the succeeding years. Paris (1934) was dedicated to his brothers Imre and Jenő. Nos Amies les bêtes (Our Friends the Animals) was released in 1936 and Les Cathédrales du vin ("The Cathedrals of Wine") in 1937.
Marriage and family
In the late 1920s, Kertész secretly married a French portrait photographer by the name of Rosza Klein (she used the name Rogi André). The marriage was short-lived and he never spoke about it.In 1930, he ventured back to Hungary to visit his family. After his return to Paris, Elizabeth followed him in 1931, despite opposition by her family. Elizabeth and André remained together for the rest of their lives. Despite his mother's dying in early 1933, Kertész married Elizabeth on 17 June 1933. He was said to have spent less time with his artist friends in favor his new wife.
In 1936 they emigrated to New York, where within a decade, they became naturalized citizens. After creating and running a successful cosmetic business for years, in 1977 Elizabeth died of cancer.
Pending war
Social and political tensions were rising in Europe with the growing strength in Germany of the Nazi Party. Many magazines emphasized stories about political topics and stopped publishing Kertész because of his apolitical subjects. With his commissioned work dropping and persecution of Jews increasing, Kertész and Elizabeth decided to move to New York. He was offered work at the Keystone agency owned by Ernie Prince. In 1936, Kertész and Elizabeth boarded the SS WashingtonSS Washington
SS Washington was a 24,189-ton luxury liner of the United States Lines, named after the US capital city.-Construction:She was ordered by Transatlantic Steamship Company and laid down on 20 January 1931 in Shipway O at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey...
bound for Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Kertész found life in America more difficult than he had imagined, beginning a period which he later referred to as the "absolute tragedy". Deprived of his artist friends, he also found that Americans rejected having their photos taken on the street. Soon after his arrival, Kertész approached Beaumont Newhall
Beaumont Newhall
Beaumont Newhall was an influential curator, art historian, writer, and photographer. His The History of Photography remains one of the most significant accounts in the field and has become a classic photo history textbook...
, director of the photographic department at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(MOMA), who was preparing a show entitled Photography 1839–1937. Offering Newhall some of his Distortions photographs, Kertesz bristled at his criticism, but Newhall did exhibit the photographs. In December 1937 Kertész had his first solo show in New York at the PM Gallery.
The Keystone agency, who had offered him offsite work, required him to stay in the company's studio. Kertész tried to return to France to visit, but had no money. By the time he had saved enough, World War II had begun and travel to France was nearly impossible. His struggles with English compounded his problems. Years after learning to speak French in Paris, it was difficult for him to learn another new language. The lack of fluent language added to his feeling like an outsider.
Frustrated, Kertész left Keystone after Prince left the company in 1937. He was commissioned by Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
for an article on the Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...
department store in their April 1937 issue. The magazine continued to use him in further issues, and he also took commissions from Town and Country
Town & Country (magazine)
Town & Country, formerly the Home Journal and The National Press, is a monthly American lifestyle magazine. It is the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States.-Early history:...
to supplement his income. Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
invited the photographer to work for the magazine, but he declined, believing it was not appropriate work for him. He chose to work for Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine, starting with a piece called The Tugboat. Despite orders, he photographed more than just tugboats, including works on the entire harbor and its activities. Life refused to publish the unauthorized photographs. Kertész resented the constraints on his curiosity.
In 25 October 1938, Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
printed a series of Kertesz photographs, entitled A Fireman Goes to School; but credited them mistakenly to Ernie Prince, his former boss. Infuriated, Kertész considered never working with photo magazines again. His work was published in the magazine Coronet
Coronet (magazine)
Coronet was a general interest digest magazine published from October 13, 1936, to March 1971 and ran for 299 issues. The magazine was owned by Esquire and published by David A. Smart from 1936 to 1961.-Typical issue:...
in 1937, but in 1939 he was excluded when the magazine published a special issue featuring its "Most memorable photographs". He later severed all ties to the magazine and its editor Arnold Gingrich
Arnold Gingrich
Arnold Gingrich was the editor of, and, along with publisher David A. Smart, co-founder of Esquire magazine. He created the magazine in 1933 and remained its editor until 1961...
. After being excluded from the June 1941 issue of Vogue, dedicated to photography, Kertesz broke off relations with them. He had contributed to more than 30 commissioned photo essays and articles in both Vogue and House and Garden, but was omitted from the list of featured photographers.
In 1941, the Kertesz couple were designated as enemy aliens because of World War II (Hungary was fighting on the side of the Axis powers). Kertész was not permitted to photograph outdoors or to have any project related to national security. Trying to avoid trouble because Elizabeth had started a cosmetics company (Cosmia Laboratories), Kertész ceased to do commissioned work and essentially disappeared from the photographic world for three years.
On 20 January 1944, Elizabeth became a US citizen; and Kertész was naturalized on 3 February. Despite competition from photographers such as Irving Penn
Irving Penn
Irving Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.-Early career:Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from which he was graduated in 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he...
, Kertész regained commissioned work. He was omitted from the list of 63 photographers which Vogue's identified as significant in its "photographic genealogical tree". But, House and Garden commissioned him to do photographs for a Christmas issue. In addition, in June 1944 László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
, director of the New Bauhaus - American School of Design
IIT Institute of Design
Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology , originally founded as the New Bauhaus, is a graduate school teaching systemic, human-centered design.- History :...
offered him a position teaching photography. Despite the honor, he turned the offer down.
In 1945, Kertesz released a new book, Day of Paris, made up of photographs taken just before his emigration from France. It gained critical success. With his wife's cosmetic business booming, Kertész agreed in 1946 to a long-term, exclusive contract with House and Garden. Although it restricted his editorial freedom and required many hours in the studio, the pay of at least US$10,000 per annum ($ per year in ) was satisfactory. All photographic negatives were returned to him within six months for his own use.
Kertész worked in the settings of many famous homes and notable places, as well as overseas, where he traveled again in England, Budapest and Paris, renewing friendships and making new ones. During the 1945-1962 period at House and Garden, the magazine published more than 3,000 of his photographs, and he created a high reputation in the industry. With little time for his personal work, Kertész felt starved of being able to exercise more artistic creativity.
Later life
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, featuring photographs from his Day of Paris series. Kertész said this was one of his greatest times in the United States. In 1952, he and his wife moved to a 12th-floor apartment near Washington Square Park, the setting for some of his best photographs since having immigrated to the US. Using a telephoto lens
Telephoto lens
In photography and cinematography, a telephoto lens is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a telephoto group that extends the light path to create a long-focus...
, he took a series of snow-covered Washington Square, showing numerous silhouettes and tracks. In 1955 he was insulted to have his work excluded when Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
's The Family of Man
The Family of Man
The Family of Man was a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen first shown in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the 'culmination of his career'. The 508 photos by 273 photographers in 68 countries were selected from almost 2...
show was featured at MOMA. Despite the success of the Chicago show, Kertesz did not gain another exhibit until 1962, when his photographs were shown at Long Island University
Long Island University
Long Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education in the U.S. state of New York.-History:...
.
International period
Toward the end of 1961, Kertesz broke his contract to Condé Nast Publishing after a minor dispute, and started doing his own work again. This later period of his life is often referred to as the "International period", when he gained worldwide recognition and his photos were exhibited in many countries. In 1962 his work was exhibited in Venice; in 1963, he was one of the invited artists of the IV Mostra Biennale Internazionale della Fotografia there and he was awarded a gold medal for his dedication to the photographic industry. Later in 1963, his work was shown in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale de FranceBibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
. He later visited Argentina to see his younger brother Jenő for the first time in years.
In 1964, soon after John Szarkowski
John Szarkowski
John Szarkowski was a photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.-Early life and career:...
became the photography director at the Museum of Modern Art, he featured Kertész in a solo show. With his work critically acclaimed, Kertesz gained recognition in the photographic world as an important artist.
The work of Kertész was featured in numerous exhibitions throughout the world in his later life, even into his early nineties. Due to his newfound success, in 1965 Kertész was appointed as a member of the American Society of Media Photographers
American Society of Media Photographers
The American Society of Media Photographers, abbreviated ASMP, is a trade association of professional photographers, including many photojournalists but also experts in architectural, underwater, culinary and advertising photography and other specialties as well...
.
His awards rapidly accumulated:
- 1974, Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
; - 1974, Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
; - 1977, Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture in New York,
- 1980 the Medal of the City of Paris, and the first Annual Award of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers in New York; and
- 1981, honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Bard CollegeBard CollegeBard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
, and the New York Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture that year.
During this period, Kertész produced a number of new books. He was able to recover some of the negatives he had left in France decades before.
In 1979, the Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...
gave him one of their new SX-70 cameras, which he experimented with into the 1980s. Still growing in fame, Kertész was granted the National Grand Prize of Photography in Paris in 1982, as well as the 21st Annual George Washington Award from the American Hungarian Foundation the same year. His dealer, Susan Harder, was active in promoting recognition of his contributions to the history of photography.
Legacy and honors
- 1983, honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of ArtRoyal College of ArtThe Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
; and title of Chevalier de la Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneurThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in Paris, together with an apartment for future visits to the city; - 1984, the Maine Photographic Workshop's first Annual Lifetime Achievement Award;
- 1984, purchase of 100 prints by the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, its largest acquisition of work from a living artist; - 1985, Californian Distinguished Career in Photography Award;
- 1985, first Annual Master of Photography Award, presented by the International Center of PhotographyInternational Center of PhotographyThe International Center of Photography is a photography museum, school, and research center in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
; and - 1985, honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Parson's School of DesignParsons The New School for DesignParsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
of the New School for Social Research.
Kertész died peacefully in his sleep at home on 28 September 1985; he was cremated and his ashes were interred with those of his wife.
Critical evaluation
Throughout most of his career Kertész was depicted as the "unknown soldier" who worked behind the scenes of photography, yet was rarely cited for his work, even into his death in the 1980s. Kertész thought himself unrecognised throughout his life, despite spending his life in the eternal search for acceptance and fame. Though Kertész received numerous awards for photography, he never felt both his style and work was accepted by critics and art audiences alike. Although, in 1927, he was the first photographer to have a solo exhibition, Kertész said that it was not until his 1946 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, that he first felt he received positive reviews on his work, and often cites this show as one of his finest moments in America. During his stay in America, he was cited as being an intimate artist, bringing the viewer into his work, even when the picture was that of subjects such as the intimidating New York City and even his reproduced work printed after his death received good reviews; "Kertesz was above all a consistently fine photographer". Kertész's work itself is often described as predominantly utilising light and even Kertész himself said that "I write with light". He was never considered to "comment" on his subjects, but rather capture them – this is often cited as why his work is often overlooked; he stuck to no political agenda and offered no deeper thought to his photographs other than the simplicity of life. With his art's intimate feeling and nostalgic tone, Kertész's images alluded to a sense of timelessness which was inevitably only recognised after his death. Unlike other photographers, Kertész's work gave an insight into his life, showing a chronological order of where he spent his time; for example, many of his French photographs were from cafés where he spent the majority of his time waiting for artistic inspiration.Although Kertész rarely received bad reviews, it was the lack of them that lead to the photographer feeling distant from recognition. Now, however, he is often considered to be the father of photojournalism. Even other photographers cite Kertész and his photographs as being inspirational; Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
once said of him in the early 1930s, "We all owe him a great deal".
Exhibitions
This list includes material from Capa et al, Corkin & Lifson, Könemann et al, and Naef et al.- 1927 – Untitled exhibition of thirty photographs at Au Sacre do Printemps Gallery, Paris. The first one-man photographer exhibition ever.
- 1927 – "III Salon International de Fotografie" in ZaragozaZaragozaZaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
. - 1927 – "XXIIIe Salon International de Fotografie" in Paris.
- 1928 – "1er Salon Indépendant de la Photographie" at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris.
- 1928 – "Exposition de Photographie" at Galerie L'Epoque, BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. - 1928 – "Internationale Foto-Salon" in RotterdamRotterdamRotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
. - 1929 – "Svaz cs. Klubu Fotografu Amateru" in PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. - 1929 – "Fotografie der Gegenwart" in EssenEssen- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
. - 1929 – "Der International Ausstellung von Film and Foto" in StuttgartStuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. - 1930 – "Das Lichtbild", a travelling show, in Essen and MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. - 1930 – "Primer Salon Annual de Fotografia" in Buenos AiresBuenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. - 1930 – "11e Salon de l'Araignée" at the G.L. Manuel Freres Gallery, Paris.
- 1930 – "Photographies d'aujourd'hui" at d'Art Contemporain Gallery, Paris.
- 1931 – "Deuxieme Groupe de Photographes" at d'Art Contemporain Gallery, Paris.
- 1931 – "Association Belge de Photographie" at the Xe Salon de Photographie, Brussels.
- 1931 – "Photographies d'aujourd'hui" at d'Art Contemporain Gallery, Paris.
- 1931 – "Neue Sportbauten" at Graphische Lehr-und Versuchsanstaldt, ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. - 1931 – "An Exhibition of Foreign Photography" at The Art Center, New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. - 1932 – "Palais des Beaux-Arts" at Internationale de la Photographie, Brussels.
- 1932 – "Modern European Photography" at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York.
- 1932 – "International Photographers" at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.
- 1932 – "Modern Photography" at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
- 1932 – Untitled exhibition at the Museum Fokwang, Essen.
- 1933 – "Deuxieme Exposition Internationale de la Photographie et Cinema" in Brussels.
- 1933 – "Groupe Annuel des Photographes" at the Galerie de la Pléiade, Paris.
- 1933 – "The Modern Spirit in Photography" at The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, London.
- 1934 – Untitled exhibition at Leleu's Studio, Paris.
- 1934 – "Groupe Annuel des Photographes" at the Galerie de la Pléiade, Paris.
- 1934 – "Exposition de la société des artistes photographes" at Studio Saint-Jacques, Paris.
- 1934 – "The Modern Spirit in Photography and Advertising" at The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, London.
- 1935 – Untitled exhibition at the Galerie de la Pléiade, Paris.
- 1936 – "Exposition Internationale de la Photographie Contemporaine" at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
- 1937 – "Photography 1839–1937" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- 1937 – Untitled exhibition at the P M Gallery, New York.
- 1937 – "Pioneers of Modern French Photography" at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York.
- 1942 – "Image of Freedom" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- 1946 – Untitled exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago, ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. This was Kertész's first solo museum exhibition in America and Kertész often cited this as one of his finest moments whilst in America. - 1963 – Untitled exhibition at Modernage Photo Lab, New York.
- 1963 – "André Kertész" at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
- 1964 – "André Kertész, Photographer" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- 1967 – "All Art Is For Life & Against the War in Vietnam" at the Terrain GalleryTerrain GalleryThe Terrain Gallery, or the Terrain, is an art gallery and educational center in SoHo, New York City. It was founded in 1955 with a philosophic basis: the ideas of Aesthetic Realism and the Siegel Theory of Opposites, developed by American poet and educator Eli Siegel...
, New York." - 1967 – "The Concerned Photographer" at the Riverside Museum, New York. This later travelled across the globe, including Tokyo.
- 1970 – "Expo '70" at the U.S. Pavilion, OsakaOsakais a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
. - 1971 – Untitled solo exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery, BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. - 1971 – Untitled solo exhibition at Moderna Museet, StockholmStockholmStockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. - 1972 – Untitled solo exhibition at Valokuvamuseon, HelsinkiHelsinkiHelsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
. - 1977 – "André Kertész" at the Musée National d'Art Moderne du Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
- 1978 – "André Kertész" at The Silver Image Gallery, Seattle (Poster published)
- 1979 – "André Kertész" at the Serpentine Gallery, London.
- 1980 – "Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?-Photography" at the Terrain GalleryTerrain GalleryThe Terrain Gallery, or the Terrain, is an art gallery and educational center in SoHo, New York City. It was founded in 1955 with a philosophic basis: the ideas of Aesthetic Realism and the Siegel Theory of Opposites, developed by American poet and educator Eli Siegel...
, New York. - 1982 – "André Kertész, Master of Photography" at the Chrysler Museum, VirginiaVirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. - 1985 – "André Kertész: Of Paris and New York" at the Chicago Institute of Art, Chicago.
- 1985 – Untitled exhibition at Printemps, Tokyo.
- 2003 – "André Kertész: The New York Period 1936 - 1985" at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
- 2004 - "André Kertész" at Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA.
- 2005 – "The Early Years" at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
- 2005 - "André Kertész" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
- 2007 – "The Polaroids" at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
- 2007-08 - "André Kertész: Seven Decades" at The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA.
- 2009 - "André Kertész: On Reading" at The Photographers' Gallery, London.
- 2009 - "André Kertész: In the Depths of Winter" at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
- 2009-10 - "Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography and Paris" at Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee.
- 2010 - "Discoveries" at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
- 2010 - "Re-Collection: Works from the collection of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center" at the Denver Public Library, Denver, CO
- 2010 - "CITY VIEWS: André Kertész, Curated by Michael Wolf", Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York City
External links
- On Reading by André Kertész
- André Kertész: Life and Its Juxtapositions – Biography on André Kertesz, iPhoto Central.
- André Kertész: Seven Decades, Getty Center
- André Kertész, The National Gallery of Art, Washington.
- "André Kertész", J. Paul Getty Museum
- "André Kertész", Fine Art Photography Masters
- Kati Marton lecture on her book, Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- Higher Pictures, New York
- Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York