Kert%C3%A9sz

This beautiful collection of photographs by Andre Kert%C3%A9sz presents a biographical account divided into geographical sections covering the artist's youth in Hungary, his early success in Paris, and the frustrations he faced in New York later in life. Knowing Kert%C3%A9sz's story provides a great insight into his work, the sadness and solitude evoked in images that often "centered around the opposition between a seemingly malevolent environment and a vulnerable individual." Kert%C3%A9sz's style was difficult to define in an age that was just beginning to recognize photography. He neither fit in with Pictorialism, the popular style in Hungary, nor the Surrealists in Paris, nor photojournalism, though his work was often labeled as such. He is often described as a poet by the authors, his images "a series of precious and revealing moments, slowly discovered and abruptly caught." Origin stories are given for some of Kert%C3%A9sz's best-known photographs, including Fork, The Lost Cloud, and his portraits of artists in absentia, such as Mondrian's Eyeglasses and Pipe. Kert%C3%A9sz "skim[ed] reality, keeping only fugitive tokens and fortuitous signs of it, to found a new photographic language," and modern photography owes a great deal to him. Photos. (Dec.)