James Hyman Gallery is delighted to present André Kertész in Europe, a new selling exhibition of images selected from works in the estate of André Kertész.
The exhibition - the first of its kind to focus on Kertész’s European work alone - spans the photographer’s whole career and features well known images as well as several unknown photographs which have never before been exhibited or published.
Born in Hungary in 1894, Kertész was one of the most internationally significant photographers of the 20th century, influencing figures such as Brassaï and Henri Cartier-Bresson and laying the foundations for photojournalism as it is known today.
André Kertész in Europe begins with the artist’s earliest photographs, made in Hungary in the 1910s, moves on to his pioneering modernist work produced in Paris during the 1920s and then presents almost unknown, later works, made in Europe after the Second World War.
Although it is often assumed that after Kertész moved to New York in 1936, he seldom travelled, he did in fact return regularly to Europe. These trips to Europe include visits to London, France and Budapest in 1948; to Venice, France and Budapest in 1963; Hungary and Spain in 1971; London, Paris and Milan in 1972; France in 1975, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1984; and little known visits to England in 1972, 1980, 1983 and 1984.
James Hyman said: ‘In 1964 the great American photography writer and curator, John Szarkowski, wrote that “Kertész’s work, perhaps more than any other photographer, defined the direction in which modern European photography developed.” We are therefore delighted to have put together - in collaboration with the Estate of André Kertész - a show which focuses exclusively on his work from Europe, an opportunity to provide fresh insights into his activity through a series of previously unknown pieces.’