The Bruce Silverstein Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: THE NEW YORK PERIOD. This exhibition, the fist comprehensive survey of his New York Period to be shown in New York, explores a half-century of work by one of the most influential and celebrated artists of the twentieth century.
André Kertész was born in Budapest Hungary in 1894. From the moment he picked up a camera in 1912, Kertész showed a remarkable ability to construct lyrical images infused with insight and wit. Arriving in Paris in 1925, Kertész began a decade of incredible productivity. It was during this period that he produced many of his most famous and iconic images including Chez Mondrian, Satiric Dancer and Mondrian’s Glasses and Pipe. By the time he left Paris for America in 1936, Andre Kertész was clearly a mature, well-recognized artist; considered a master photographer by his peers, with photographs extensively reproduced and exhibited throughout Europe.
Yet, soon after arriving in New York in 1936, André Kertész soon found life both difficult and demoralizing. As Hostilities in Europe grew upon the onset of WWII, the American government classified Kertész as an enemy alien and warned him not to photograph on the streets. In addition, he was unable to find a publisher who appreciated his imagery. Moreover, Kertész began to disappear completely from critical exhibitions and publications. Finally, as his ability to find steady work began to fade, Kertész began a working for House and Garden creating sterile architectural interiors completely void of the powerful attributes for which he was known. Physiologically wounded, he remained at House and Garden doing what he defined as “hack work” and drifting into obscurity. It is quite evident that the effects of these events on Kertész’s work was significant and should not be underestimated.While wit and charm still imbued these images, as did his earlier works in Hungary and Paris, the bitterness of his solitude increasingly emerged in his work.
In 1952 Kertész and his wife moved to an apartment at 2 Fifth Avenue overlooking Washington Square Park. Living in Greenwich Village reminded Kertész of Paris and somewhat grounded him. From the vantage point of his window, Kertész shot rooftops, nude sunbathers, and people in the park below. Many of these images, such as Washington Square, 1954, would become some of the most important yet under appreciated works of his career. Ten years later, in 1962, after a two-decade hiatus, Kertész returned to street photography in earnest. While many of these images revealed the alienating side of New York, a bi-product of Kertész’s still fragile emotional state, they always retained Kertész brilliant sense of composition and cleverness.
The year 1964 represented a changing point in Kertész’s life. John Szarkowski, the curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art discovered that Andre Kertész, the great master photographer that he had assumed dead was indeed alive and still productive. He gave Kertész a one-man show. This exhibition was the beginning of a process that would once again restore Kertész to his rightful place in the history of art. After this show, Kertész finally received the acclaim in America he so justly deserved. Yet, as life seemed to look up for Kertész, the death of his wife Elizabeth in 1977 once again moved Kertész into sadness. Kertész turned to the still life to express his grief. Kertész purchased a small glass bust that reminded him of Elizabeth and obsessively photographed it among the artifacts that he and Elizabeth had collected throughout their years together. These images are powerful metaphorical and literal symbols of life, love, loss, death and mortality. It was through this process of photographically expressing his grief that enabled Kertész to move on. In the years following her death, until his own departure in 1985, André Kertész continued to photograph as well as to devote his energies toward solidifying his stature as an artist of world rank.
