Kertész, André

Kertész, André (kĕrtĕsh`), 1894–1985, American photographer, b. Budapest. His black-and-white modernist photographs often capture small, lyrical, and emotionally resonant moments while also formally exploiting the play of light and shadow, pattern, and depth of space. Kertész became a professional photographer after emigrating (1925) from Hungary to Paris and subsequently purchased a 35-mm camera, which allowed him to photograph everyday events on the Parisian streets unobtrusively. The small-format camera remained his favorite instrument throughout his long career. In Paris he also experimented with surrealistically distorted nudes, made many portraits of his artist friends, and contributed to various illustrated magazines. He moved to New York City in 1936, became a U.S. citizen in 1944, and took many sensitive photographs of his adopted city's street life. Kertész also worked as a commercial magazine photographer until the early 1960s. His work has been featured in several major museum retrospectives and in such volumes as Day of Paris (1945), André Kertész: Sixty Years of Photography (1972), and Kertész on Kertész (1985).

Bibliography

See studies by J. Corkin, ed. (1982, repr. 1993), S. Harder and H. Kubota, ed. (1987), P. Borhan, ed. (1994, repr. 2000), and S. Greenough and R. Gurbo, ed. (2005).

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Kertész, André

(born July 2, 1894, Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire—died Sept. 27, 1985, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Hungarian-born U.S. photographer and photojournalist. He moved from Budapest to Paris in 1925 in search of opportunity and became a major contributor to European illustrated periodicals. He became friendly with many influential artists, including Marc Chagall and Piet Mondrian; his access to such figures allowed him to create a definitive portrait of the Parisian cultural milieu of the period. In 1928 he bought a Leica, a small handheld camera. The lightweight camera gave him the freedom to move about the streets of Paris and capture spontaneous moments of urban life, a subject that would fascinate him throughout his career. He arrived in New York City in 1936 intending to work for a commercial studio for a year, but stayed on, doing largely fashion photography for major U.S. magazines. He returned to his pursuit of urban life c. 1962, and in 1964 the Museum of Modern Art gave an exhibition of his works. His spontaneous, unposed pictures exerted a strong influence on magazine photography.

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Kertész, André (1894–1985) photographer; born in Budapest, Hungary. A photographer with the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, he came to Paris in 1925 where he inspired French photojournalists like Cartier-Bresson. Brought to New York by Keystone studios in 1936, he became a free-lance fashion and interiors photographer, landing a contract with Condé Nast (1949–62). In 1963, he returned to photojournalism, winning the New York City Mayors' Award in 1977.