André Kertész American, 1926 Gelatin silver printSubscribers will recieve a little Christmas cheer from us again this year in the form of a card adorned by Andre Kertesz's Satiric Dancer, from the wonderful upcoming collection of expatriate New Zealand wine maker, cinematographer and international photography collector, Michael Seresin. Like other photographers from this period who took dance as a subject, André Kertész appreciated the ability of the camera to capture "people in motion . . . the moment when something changes into something else." This image was made in the Paris studio of fellow Hungarian emigré, the sculptor István Beöthy. The subject is the Hungarian dancer and cabaret performer Magda Förstner. In a playful response to Beöthy's sculpture on the left, she strikes a pose on the couch. André Kertész bought his first camera and made his first photograph while working as a clerk at the Budapest stock exchange in 1912. After years of amateur snapshot photography in his native Hungary, he moved to Paris in 1925 and began a career as a freelance photographer. There the young transplant, speaking little French, took to the streets, wandering, observing, and developing his intimate approach to imagemaking. He also met and began to photograph other artists, including Brassaï, who also features in the Seresin Collection. From 1933 to 1936 Kertész published three books of his own photographs. Immigrating to the United States in 1936, he settled in New York, where he earned his living photographing architecture and interiors for magazines such as House and Garden. It was not until he retired from commercial work at age sixty-eight that Kertész was free to focus again on the more personal subjects that had delighted him as an amateur.
