André Kertész exhibit

A retrospective exhibition of André Kertész

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, presents the West Coast premiere of André Kertész, on view through September 5, 2005. Widely hailed as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, André Kertész (1894-1985) created some of the most deceptively simple yet compelling photographs ever taken. André Kertész will be among the first major Kertész retrospective of vintage photographs held in the United States and will include several works being exhibited or reproduced for the first time in Southern California.

André Kertész is a retrospective exhibition of the work of one of the 20th-century's greatest photographers. As evidenced by some of his earliest surviving photographs, he appears to have recognized almost immediately that he could use the camera to explore, preserve, and question his relationship to the world. He had little interest in grand subjects or newsworthy events, but instead photographed his friends and family on their outings to the countryside, as well as his neighborhood in Budapest.

The exhibit will showcase approximately 140 objects featuring photographs from all periods of Kertész’s 70 year career, including some of the most celebrated works in 20th century photography, such as Chez Mondrian and Satiric Dancer. From the early photographs of his native Budapest made in the 1910s and early 1920s, to his studies of Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, and the final series of photographs he took of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, shortly before his death.

About Kertész

Kertész was born in Budapest, Hungary, where he graduated from the Academy of Commerce in 1912. As a young man André Kertész found a photographic manual in an attic and decided to become a photographer. He became a photographer of street and genre scenes at that time, and worked as a clerk at the Budapest Stock Exchange from 1912 to 1914. During service with the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Balkans and Central Europe in 1914-1915, Kertész photographed his comrades and their activities until he was severely wounded in battle. Many of the images he made were lost during the Hungarian Revolution of 1918.

For 10 years, Kertész worked as a freelance photographer in Paris for European magazines including Vu, Art et Medecine, the London Sunday Times, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, and UHU. His work as a photojournalist was highly acclaimed at this time, and he made many sympathetic portraits of Paris artists including Leger, Mondrian, Chagall, Brancusi, and Colette. In Paris he began his series Distortions. His first one man show was held at the Sacre du Printemps Gallery, Paris, in 1927. Kertész acquired his first Leica and did documentaries for Vu.

During his years in Paris he created some of the most celebrated works in all of twentieth-century photography, including The Satiric Dancer of 1926, Chez Mondrian of the same year, The Eiffel Tower of 1929, and Clock of the Académie Française of 1932
In 1933 he married Elisabeth Sali and published his first book on children.

In 1936, lured by the prospect of a lucrative contract with a picture agency in New York, Kertész moved to the United States. He attempted to bring over his negatives from Paris, but more than half were lost in transit. Almost immediately he realized that his European sensibility would not easily merge with an American way of doing business. He intended to remain in America for a short period only, but was unable to return to Europe because of the war.

From 1937 to 1949 he worked as a freelance fashion and interiors photographer for such magazines as Look, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Collier's, and Town and Country. He became an American citizen in 1944. From 1949 to 1962 he worked exclusively under contract with Conde Nast Publications. Turning inward, he continued to make photographs for himself that expressed not only his fascination with the spectacle of New York City, but also his growing sense of isolation and loneliness.

He had an enduring influence upon world photography when he was a mentor to photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and Brassai. Cartier-Bresson has acknowledged this achievement: "Whatever we have done, Kertész did first."

Kertész has been the recipient of many honors. He received a Silver Medal at the Exposition Coloniale, Paris in 1930, a Gold Medal at the Venice Biennale in 1962, and the Mayor's Award, New York, in 1977. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, is an Honorary Member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (1965), and was named Commander, Order of Arts and Letters, by the French Government in 1976.

He died in 1985.

Many details about André Kertész life come from the press release, Encyclopedia of Photography, 20th Century Photography, and Looking at Photographs.

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