KERTSZ, ANDR

born July 2, 1894, Budapest died Sept. 27, 1985, New York City Hungarian-born American photojournalist whose spontaneous, unposed pictures exerted a strong influence on magazine photography. While working as a clerk on the Budapest Stock Exchange in 1912, Kertsz began to photograph the world around him. During World War I he served in the Hungarian Army, saw action in most of central Europe, and was severely wounded. After the war he returned to business but had occasional photographs printed in Hungarian magazines. Aware that Budapest offered little opportunity for artistic development, in 1925 he left for Paris. There he became friendly with many avant-garde artists, writers, and filmmakers. Kertsz became a photographic historian of the Parisian cultural milieu of the 1920s and '30s; soon his photographs appeared in leading European newspapers. As his photojournalistic style called for the responsiveness and flexibility of the small camera, in 1928 he bought one of the first Leica cameras. A one-man show in 1927 was warmly received, as were his photographs shown the following year at the influential First Independent Salon of Photography. Kertsz became a major contributor to Vu, which began publication in 1928, and Art et Mdecine, which began publication in 1930, as well as other important illustrated periodicals in Europe. In 1936 he went to New York City to work for a one-year period in a commercial studio, but, with the advent of World War II, he remained, carrying out commercial (largely fashion) photography for major American magazines. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944. About 1962 he began to work again in his previous creative style. In 1964 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City gave a retrospective exhibition of his work. Books of his photographs include Day of Paris (1945), Andr Kertsz, Photographer (1964), Andr Kertsz (1967), On Reading (1971), Andr Kertsz: Sixty Years of Photography (1972), and Distortions (1976).