André Kertész
Hungarian-American Photographer
Movements and Styles: Straight Photography, Documentary Photography, Fashion Photography
Born: July 2, 1894 - Budapest, Hungary
Died: September 28 - 1985 - New York, US
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"Everybody can look, but they don't necessarily see."
Synopsis
André Kertész was a Hungarian-born photographer best known for his lyrical, elegant and formally rigorous style. One of the most inventive photographers of the twentieth-century, Kertész (and while he would work across different formats including the polaroid in later years) is regarded most highly perhaps for the way he explored the range of use for the new Leica handheld camera. Less well known by name perhaps than contemporaries (and admirers) such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassaï, Kertész, who advocated spontaneity over technical precision - "photographs can be technically perfect and even beautiful, but they have no expression" he once said - created a highly distinctive body of work that reflected his commitment to poetic and geometric forms. Kertész travelled the avant-garde road from Budapest, to Paris to New York. His feelings of isolation and rootlessness, exacerbated by his reluctance to learn French and English, respectively, would manifest in a body of work that often reflected a quiet mood of melancholy.
Key Ideas
Biography
Childhood
André Kertész (christened Andor), was born on July 2nd, 1894, in Budapest (Hungary), to middle-class Jewish parents. He was the second (between Imre and Jenő) of three sons. His father, Lipót Kertész, was a bookseller specializing in classical Hungarian literature, and a stockbroker; his mother, Ernesztin Hoffmann, in addition to raising her three sons, sold coffee in Teleki Square. The family also owned two modest plots of land. From the age of about six, Andor would often visit nearby relatives who allowed him to build a den in their attic. There he came across old copies of Die Gartenlaube, a German newspaper. Die Gartenlaube was illustrated with woodcuts and lithography and Andor daydreamed that he might one day produce images like this. By all accounts his was a happy childhood but his wanderlust showed itself at an early age when, at just 12 years old, he packed a suitcase with books (and his flute) and set off to 'discover the world'. His short-lived adventure notwithstanding, he attended elementary school on Szív Street, and later, at the Realschule on Reáltanoda Street. His father died In 1909 of tuberculosis. Following this family tragedy, paternal duties passed to his uncle, Lipót Hoffmann (Ernesztin's brother), who became the boys' official guardian. The family moved into Lipót's countryside home close to the Danube River and André spent happy hours fishing and bathing on its banks. Lipót took his new responsibilities seriously and paid for his nephew to attend the Academy of Commerce in Budapest. Andor duly graduated in 1912 taking up a post at the Giro Bank of the Budapest Stock and Commodity Exchange in the same year.
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Content compiled and written by Anna Souter
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Anna Souter
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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