Andor (“André”) Kertész (1894 – 1985) was a photographer from Hungarian descent, in 1944 he became an American. Kertész father wanted him to develop a career in banking, he went to a business school in Budapest. in 1912 he got his first camera, during WWI he made many photos from the battle at the front. In 1916 he won his first price with a selfportrait, in 1917 he published his first photo in a photomagazine Érdekes Újság.
Many of his negatives were lost during the Hungarian Revolution.
In 1925 Kertész moved to Paris to work for outstanding newspapers and magazines. He became friends wth Brassaï who encouraged him to focus fully on photography. His first solo exposition was in 1928 at galery Au Sacre du Printemps. In 1928 he exposed together with Man Ray and Felix Nadar, he worked a lot for art magazine. From 1930 he published many photobooks with daily streetlife in Paris as main theme. His photobook Distortion (1933) was different, showing artistic and surreal nude photos from models Najinskaja Verakatsj and Nadia Kasine. In a previous blog I mentioned Kertész photographing some fetish works as well (for Diana Slip Lingerie). Which makes sense since his friend Brassaï also did some work for Diana Slip Lingerie.

In 1936 Kertész migrated to the US. He worked for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. After WWII he tried to get his negatives back to the States, it seemed these were destroyed same as his older ones in 1918.
After having been very ill he ended his professional career in 1962, but he kept photographing in black and white till his death in 1985.