The Poetry of the Street André Kertész
The Hungarian-born André Kertész wasn’t always regarded as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. Revered for his advancements in photojournalism, the photo essay and composition, Kertesz was largely unknown in the art community, save the belated attention he received in the ‘60s, and again in the ‘80s.
Perhaps he’s best known for his sensitive images of the everyday. And though he considered himself a realist and documentarian, he was informally associated with the surrealist movement, and also leant on the teachings of cubism.
André Kertész Mondrian's Pipe and Glasses. Paris, 1926
André Kertész Circus 1920
Freud once said reality is that which ‘gets in the way’ — that which disrupts or shackles our fantasies and dreams. In the case of photo realism, it’s argued what is considered ‘real’ in photography isn’t just formal technique or objective style.
This take on realism defined Kertész early on in his career as one of the founders of photojournalism. As a young man he photographed Hungarian peasants on the streets, pioneering the use of a small camera. His snapshots reveal moments, or surprises, in every day life. He was a mentor to Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Brassai — a look at their oeuvres hark back to Kertész.
After a flurry of magazines publishing his photographs, he moved to Paris to establish himself as a professional photographer. Coming from a Jewish middle-class background, his stock broker father expected him to pursue business. However, the outbreak of war in 1914 thwarted his move into banking, and he instead served in the Austro-Hungarian army until he was wounded in 1915. During his service, his passion quickened for photography.
In direct juxtaposition to his family ideals, Kertész fell in love with the bohemian culture of Paris. He would then go on to work for magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and House & Garden, as well as mounting solo shows at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1946 and at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1964.
André Kertész La Fourchette, 1928
Kertész’s work during his time in Paris can be identified as his ‘purist’ phase, particularly with the works Fork and Mondrian’s Glasses and Pipe (1926). These helped build his reputation as a photographer.
André Kertész Chairs of Paris, 1927
André Kertész Underwater Swimmer, Esztergom. Hungary, 1917
André Kertész Lost Cloud, New York 1937
In 1952, Kertész and his wife moved to a 12th floor apartment in New York, near Washington Square. Similar to Paris, he wanted to further establish himself. With the aid of a telephoto lens, he turned his attention to the snow-covered tracks and silhouettes in the park below his window.
Despite his work being feature and exhibited in galleries worldwide, in this period of his life André Kertész still felt artistically and professional unfulfilled.
It was not known of Kertész to use romantic captions for his work, often sticking with the more prosaic names of places and individuals. It’s argued this work can be viewed as an allegory for Kertész, lost or rootless in New York during a time of Jewish persecution. In using the adjective ‘lost’ the cloud is coloured with emotion.
Underwater Swimmer illustrates Kertész’s interest in compositional and metaphorical concepts, which would inform the rest of his career and influence a generation of photographers. Convalescing after being shot in WWI, Kertész photographed a man (likely his brother) swimming in a pool. Though deceptively simple, the use of distorting the ripples in the water freezes a moment in time, highlighting photography’s revolutionary aspect of creating permanent images — the transient phenomenon. It has been named one of the most influential photographs of the twentieth century. Curator and Kertész André Kertész Chairs of Paris, 1927 André Kertész Broken Plate, 1929 specialist Mirjam Kooiman argues that ‘throughout his career he had this interest for mirroring surfaces, reflections and distortions - as a reflection on life.’
Underwater Swimmer accelerated an interest in depicting swimming pools and people swimming underwater that can later be identified in modern painting through the likes of Henri Matisse (The Swimming Pool, 1952); David Hockney (A Bigger Splash, 1967); and Samantha French (Rise Up, 2017); and in installation art too, through Leandro Erlich (Swimming Pool, 1999).
André Kertész Meudon, France, 1928
Treasuring emotional impact over technique, he once famously remarked, ‘I just walk around, observing the subject from various angles until the picture elements arrange themselves into a composition that pleases my eye’.
Maybe the most fitting explanation of André Kertész’s work was from Henri Cartier-Bresson who said: ‘Each time André Kertész’s shutter clicks, I feel his heart beating.’
Dying in 1985, the artist leaves behind an idiosyncratic oeuvre, widely revered, and 100,000 negatives, many of which remain unseen to this day.
Thank you for reading,
Kieran McMullan & Cluster Photography & Print Journal