American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

October 5, 2024 – January 26, 2025

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Martinique, 1970, printed 1972 

Gelatin silver print, 16 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2018.206 

André de Dienes

(American, born Hungary, 1913–1985)

Marilyn Monroe, ca. 1949

Gelatin silver print, 30 5/8 x 24 5/8 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Adolph D. Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2021.598,

Photograph © Andre De Dienes/MUUS Collection 

László Kondor 

(American, born Hungary, 1940) 

Boys with U.S. Flag, Midway Park, Chicago, 1968, printed 1995 

Gelatin silver print, 13 x 19 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2021.83 

© 2024 Estate of Laszlo Kondor 

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) announces its upcoming exhibition, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy. The exhibition fills a missing chapter in art history and is slated to be the most comprehensive exhibition to examine the geographical reach and extensive influence that Hungarian American photographers have had on 20th-century photography.

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy is organized for VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. The exhibition, which is co-curated by Károly Kincses, founding director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

American, born Hungary features more than 170 works and related ephemera from 33 photographers. “The photography of Americans born in Hungary is an important, but very under-told, story,” Nyerges said. “As one of the country’s top 10 comprehensive art museums, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is positioned, and even called upon, to help lead the way in telling it.”

Hungarian American artists transformed modern photography in the U.S. Some introduced radical, experimental photographic techniques while others brought with them innovative approaches to photojournalism, advertising and fashion photography. Their encounters with different facets of American life further shaped their approaches to the medium, ultimately leading them to contribute in robust ways to modern photography.

The wealth of intellectual and artistic talent that departed Hungary between the end of World War I and the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 is almost unprecedented in size and effect. This historic emigration included legendary symphony conductors George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, composer Béla Bartók, award-winning film directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda and world-renowned architects and designers Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, who is also a featured photographer in the exhibition.

Included in American, born Hungary are works by notable photographers such as André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós) and György Kepes, along with less familiar names whose photos are instantly recognizable. Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), for example, was a pioneer of modern photojournalism whose photos of Omaha Beach on D-Day are among the most renowned images of World War II.

The exhibition examines Hungarian photographers working during the period of political turmoil in their home country during the early 20th century, before the photographers began their emigration to European capitals such as Paris, where surrealism evolved in the 1930s; Berlin, where modernism flourished; and in Dessau, Germany, where the utopian Bauhaus art school was a haven for the post-World War I avant-garde.

The focus of American, born Hungary, however, is the impact of Hungarian-born artists on photography in the United States, especially in urban centers such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Through stunning images, the exhibition shows the profound impact of this group of photographers who explored their new country with sensitivity, rigor and insight.

Paula Wright (Paula Weisz) 

(American, born Hungary, 1930–2015)

Central Park, New York, Winter Reflections, ca. 1960

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2020.133

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Lexington Avenue at 44th Street, New York, 1937, printed later

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Gift of Judy Haselton, 2018.472

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Fire Escape, New York, 1949

Gelatin silver print, 24 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2014.174

Highlights include works by tailor and photographer John Albok (Albók János), whose scenes of leisure in Central Park and the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair received critical acclaim; Moholy-Nagy, whose “New Bauhaus” sought to establish the Windy City as a design incubator; André de Dienes, whose portraits of cinema’s icons, including Marilyn Monroe, helped fuel Hollywood’s Golden Age; and photojournalists, such as László Kondor, who documented the Vietnam War and social injustice in America.

Featured Photographers

Photographic works by these artists are featured in the exhibition American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy: Lucien Aigner (Aigner László), John Albok (Albók János), Anna Barna, Ferenc Berko, Cornell Capa (Freidmann Kornell), Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), Helene Deutch, Stephen Deutch, André de Dienes, Orshi Drozdik, Arnold Eagle, Jolán Gross-Bettelheim, Francis Haar (Haár Ferenc), Nicholas Ház, Béla Kalman, György Kepes, André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Ylla (Camilla Koffler), László Kondor, Balthazar Korab, György Lőrinczy, László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós), Marion Palfi, Sylvia Plachy, Emeri P. Révész-Biró (Révész Imre, Biró Irma), Michael Simon (Simon Mihály, Cornel Somogy, Marcel Sternberger, Max Thorek (Torok Maximilian), László Josef Willinger and Paula Wright (Weisz Paula).

Traveling Exhibition

Organized by VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges, and by founding Director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography Károly Kincses American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy first appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary, from April 5 to August 29, 2024. From Oct. 5, 2024, to Jan. 26, 2025, the exhibition will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Following its run at VMFA, the exhibition will travel to the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, where it will be on view from Sept. 26, 2025, to March 1, 2026.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition catalogue, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy, is published by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and distributed by Yale University Press. The 360-page catalogue features more than 170 photographic images and includes essays by Alex Nyerges and Karoly Kincses, as well as as an introduction by Robert Gurbo, trustee, Estate of André Kertész and president of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation. American, born Hungary will be available to purchase in the VMFA Shop and online from Yale University Press.

VMFA - VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

200 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., Richmond, VA 23220

www.vmfa.museum

L'équilibriste, André Kertész : 1912-1982 @ Jeu de Paume – Château de Tours

L'équilibriste, André Kertész : 1912-1982
Jeu de Paume – Château de Tours
26 juin - 27 octobre 2019

Cet été au Jeu de Paume – Château de Tours, l’exposition rétrospective L'équilibriste, André Kertész : 1912-1982 est consacrée au grand photographe hongrois naturalisé américain (1894-1985). Son oeuvre fut à l’unisson de sa vie et de ses sentiments : de ses débuts en Hongrie à l’épanouissement de son talent en France, de ses années d’isolement à New York à sa reconnaissance internationale. Acteur majeur de la scène artistique parisienne durant l’entre-deux-guerres, André Kertész, dont la carrière s’étend sur plus de soixante-dix ans, est aujourd’hui reconnu comme l’un des photographes les plus marquants du XXe siècle. Cette exposition d’une centaine de tirages retrace le lien que Kertész a tissé tout au long de sa vie entre ses pratiques photographiques et éditoriales.

Autodidacte, André Kertész (Budapest, 1894-New York, 1985) se voit offrir son premier appareil en 1912. Mobilisé en 1914, il photographie la vie quotidienne des soldats, l’attente dans les tranchées, les longues marches. Après la guerre, il cherche à faire de la photographie son métier et publie ses premières images dans la presse en 1925.

Il arrive à Paris et fréquente alors les milieux artistiques d’avant-garde. Dès 1926, il publie dans de nombreux magazines français et allemands comme VU, Art et Médecine ou Uhu. Ses images empreintes d’émotion, aux cadrages imaginatifs, saisissent ses amis hongrois, les ateliers d’artistes de Montparnasse, des scènes de rue et des déshérités. En 1932-1933, il réalise sa célèbre série des Distorsions où les corps nus de deux modèles se reflètent dans un miroir déformant.

En 1936, il signe un contrat avec Keystone, la plus grande agence photographique américaine de portée internationale de l’époque et émigre à New York. Toutefois, il peine à s’imposer sur le marché de la photographie. Les rues, l’enchevêtrement des buildings ou les toits le fascinent et lui offrent de nouveaux sujets.

A partir de 1944, année de sa naturalisation américaine, il collabore avec des revues telles que Vogue et House and Garden. A partir de 1962, André Kertész cesse de répondre à toute commande et voit son oeuvre reconnue par les institutions et le grand public : il est exposé à New York, Paris, Londres, Tokyo et Venise.

Cette exposition d’une centaine de tirages modernes argentiques réalisés en 1995 par Yvon Le Marlec, tireur avec lequel André Kertész collaborait à Paris, est organisée autour des ouvrages majeurs que le photographe a publié de son vivant.

Des maquettes originales comme celle de Distorsions (1976) et des reproductions d’ouvrages issues de Day of Paris (1945), où il avait restitué le Paris des années 1930, Sixty Years of Photography (1972), J’aime Paris (1974), Of New York… (1976) et Hungarians Memories (1982) témoignent de sa réflexion sur son œuvre à la fin de sa vie. Alors qu’il pratique la couleur depuis les années 1940, l’utilisation du Polaroid SX-70 lui offre un nouveau champ d’expérimentation à partir de 1979.

Une sélection d’une quinzaine de tirages modernes en référence à l’ouvrage From My Window (1981) permet de découvrir la dernière série du photographe. Ces tirages respectent le format et la sélection d'une série de reproductions que Kertész a effectuée à la fin de sa vie. 

Un album est édité à l'occasion de l'exposition.

L'équilibriste : André Kertész

Album de l’exposition

Textes de Pia Viewing et Matthieu Rivallin

Broché, 22 × 31 cm ; 48 pages, 43 ill. coul. et n. et b.

Jeu de Paume / Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine

ISBN : 978-2-915704-87-7

Commissaires de l'exposition : Matthieu Rivallin et Pia Viewing

Cette exposition est coproduite par le Jeu de Paume et la Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine, en collaboration avec la Ville de Tours. 

JEU DE PAUME - CHATEAU DE TOURS
25 avenue André-Malraux, 37000 Tours
www.jeudepaume.org

André Kertész @ Foam, Amsterdam : Mirroring Life

André Kertész – Mirroring Life
Foam, Amsterdam
Through 10 January 2018

ANDRE KERTESZ (1894-1985) is renowned for the exceptional contribution he made to the visual language of 20th-century photography with his poetic work. Foam presents a retrospective of his oeuvre, examining his early work created in his homeland of Hungary, his time in Paris – where between 1925 and 1936, he was a leading figure in avant-garde photography – through to New York, where he lived for nearly fifty years. In an interview, André Kertész once said: “Everybody can look, but they don’t necessarily see.” Mirroring Life explores his creative capacity, using unusual compositions to create a new perspective of reality. It is an homage to the photographer whom Henri Cartier-Bresson viewed as one of his mentors.

At a very early age André Kertész was drawn to the photography he saw in illustrated magazines as a child. In 1912, after his study in Business Administration, he bought his first camera from his first pay cheque. His hobby quickly gained the upper hand. He photographed farmers, gypsies and landscapes and made playful compositions featuring his brothers as extras. Even when he was called into the army in 1914, he took his camera with him. However, the photographs he took during the war sooner resemble a personal diary than a news report. In 1925, he left Hungary and moved to Paris. More than other photographers of his time, such as Jacques Henri Lartigue, who focused on his own flamboyant lifestyle, or Brassaï, who voyeuristically captured the cabarets and forbidden temptations of nocturnal Paris, André Kertész worked as an anonymous flâneur. He observed the city, taking in its cafés and parks, or simply looked out of the window of his flat. He photographed his artist friends, shop windows, posters and symbols on the street, shadows cast by trees, passers-by, children playing, a pair of glasses laying on a table – simple things, but always captured from a unique perspective, through which he found poetry in the mundane.

In 1936, André Kertész traded Paris in for New York, where he went to work for the Keystone agency. He intended to return to Paris after a year or two, and left the majority of his negatives in France. However, due to a lack of income and World War II returning was no longer an option. For many years, his work was not valued in New York. That was until 1964, when John Szarkowski, the new curator of photography at MoMA, rediscovered his work and organised a solo exhibition to showcase it. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue containing 64 photographs. In 1963, Kertész also retrieved the negatives that he had left in France in 1936, significantly enlarging his depleted oeuvre.

In 1984, a year before his death, André Kertész donated 100,000 negatives and 15,000 colour slides, letters and other personal documents to the French Ministry of Culture. In Foam a large selection of around 200 of these photographs can be seen. The black-and-white modern silver gelatine prints featured in the exhibition originate from the negatives from this collection. A selection of unique historical documents like illustrated magazines, photobooks, contact sheets and dummies was also added to the exhibition.

Mirroring Life features more than 200 photographs, offering a chronological overview of Kertész’ 70-year artistic oeuvre: the Hungarian period (1912-1925), his time in Paris (1925-1936), the American period in New York (1936-1985) and the international period that followed the reassessment of his work. It was in this final period that he rediscovered his artistic soul, departing on numerous trips that allowed his photography to flourish anew. André Kertész’ best-known and most respected work is shot in black-and-white, but the exhibition also features a small selection of colour photographs. These works have been rarely published or displayed, hence they have remained a less well-known element of his oeuvre. Despite a variety of periods and circumstances, themes and styles, Mirroring Life reveals the consistent poetic approach in the work of André Kertész.

This exhibition is organised with Jeu de Paume, Paris, in collaboration with La Médiathèque d l’architecture et du patrimoine, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication – France and diChroma photography.

Foam
Keizersgracht 609 - 1017 DS Amsterdam
www.foam.org

Architecture photographs and drawings from the Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy

MACHINES FOR LIVING. ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE GALLERIA CIVICA DI MODENA COLLECTION
Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy
Through 26 January 2014 

MARYLIN BRIDGES

Chrysler Building, N.Y, 1988

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Marilyn Bridges

The Galleria civica di Modena in Italy presents around 100 works, including paper-based drawings and (often Utopian) architectural projects, along with images of finished architecture as represented by the photographic medium. The exhibition was created entirely using materials to be found in the Gallery’s own collections. 

Studies of single buildings along with urban visions have been selected from the Gallery’s heritage so as to offer an overview of some of the most important representatives of contemporary architecture and its various interpretations by photographers from around the world. 

ANDRE KERTESZ

Puddle, New York, 1967

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Estate of André Kertész

The drawings (more than 80 works) include sheets by great 20th-century architects such as Carlo Aymonino, Andrea Branzi, Guido Canella, Paolo Portoghesi and Aldo Rossi, as well as figures bound in particular to the Emilian territory, such as Cesare Leonardi (7 unreleased works) and Tullio Zini, to whom two special sections of the exhibition are dedicated, further enhanced by recent donations. Furthermore, great space is also given over to the major Ico Parisi drawing set, from which sketches for three major architectural projects have been taken: 10 sheets from the series ‘I grattacieli’, preparatory studies for the façade of the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and for the town-planning project “Operazione Arcevia”.

Glimpses of the city or of single buildings are the subjects featured in the photographs from the Photography Collection: more than 40 works by a range of different authors, not all of whom dedicate their attention entirely to architecture. Along with the ‘specialists’, there are in fact photographers who address their images simply as an ‘everyday space’, setting up a dialogue and interpreting it from new points of view. 

FRANCO FONTANA

Los Angeles, 1990

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Franco Fontana

LUIGI GHIRRI

Il cimitero di Modena, 1983

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Eredi Luigi Ghirri

The exhibition include shots by italian photographers Franco Fontana, Luigi Ghirri, Olivo Barbieri, Mimmo Jodice, the duo Andreoni-Fortugno, Marco Zanta, the architects Paolo Portoghesi and Ico Parisi. On the international side works by André Kertész, Marylin Bridges, Lewis Baltz, Reinhart Wolf, Naoya Hatakeyama and Jun Shiraoka are exhibited. 

The exhibition also feature the projection of 400 shots taken from the photographic census of the historic town centre of Modena commissioned from Paolo Monti in 1973, heritage of the Library of civic art and architecture "Luigi Poletti" in Modena. 

The exhibition is curated by Francesca Mora and Gabriella Roganti, promoted and organised by the Galleria civica di Modena and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, with support from the Culture Councillorship of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council.

Galleria Civica di Modena
Palazzina dei Giardini, corso Canalgrande, Modena, Italy
www.comune.modena.it 

André Kertész, Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica

André Kertész: Painting with Light
Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica
January 15 - March 4, 2000

The Peter Fetterman Gallery presents an exhibition of the photographs of André Kertész, one of the twentieth century's foremost photographers. The exhibition features photographs from all periods of Kertész's oeuvre.

André Kertész, (1894-1985) was born in Budapest, Hungary. At age eighteen, Kertész purchased his first camera, which was an early hand-held instrument. This gave him the freedom to be much more creative in his photography. From 1914-1918, André Kertész fought in World War I, where he served in the Austro-Hungarian army and photographed behind the lines. After the war, André Kertész struggled to find his niche as he worked at the Budapest Stock Exchange and began experimenting with photography including some early distortions and tension in his compositions.

André Kertész career began to take off when he moved to Paris in 1925. He was the first serious photographer to master the newly invented Leica camera. A vast improvement over the earlier hand-held camera André Kertész once used, the Leica allowed the photographer to assume the role of the flaneur, easily moving among the crowds of Parisians on the street and in the cafes. His easy mobility allowed André Kertész to photograph on a whim, capturing odd angles and a decidedly modern sense of chance. At this time, others recognized André Kertész's brilliance and his photographs were included in various exhibitions and several were already in the permanent collections of museums in Germany.

By the late 1930's, André Kertész moved to New York where he freelanced as a photojournalist for several magazines including Vogue, House and Garden, and Harper's Bazaar. When World War II broke out, André Kertész was forced to register as a resident alien and was restricted from taking photographs on the street. During this time, André Kertész attempted to enter the New York art world only to be spurned by dealers and curators who had difficulty accepting his style. André Kertész worked for Condé Nast publications from 1947 to 1964, photographing interiors for design magazines, but continued his own artistic pursuits. After 1964, André Kertész devoted himself entirely to his art, and his American recognition finally came in the form of exhibitions and publications. His work from this later period reflects a feeling of distance possessed by André Kertész. Often he would photograph scenes in Washington Square Park from the balcony of his apartment, producing elegant compositions of branches and people strolling. André Kertész remained in New York City until his death in 1985.

The photographs of André Kertész are included in museums worldwide and every major collection. He received awards such as a Guggenheim fellowship and the Medal of the City of Paris. André Kertész's work remains as a testament to his genius as a photographer and his status as the father of modern photography.

PETER FETTERMAN GALLERY
Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Gallery A7, Santa Monica, CA 90404
www.peterfetterman.com