André Kertész

by Andre Kertesz and Matthieu Rivallin

Published 1 August 1982
André Kertesz, a master photographer of the twentieth century, was a pioneer in photographic composition and photojournalism who gained critical acclaim for his image distortions. Born in Hungary, he moved from Paris to New York during World War II. In 1963, he returned to Paris and took more than 2,000 black-and-white photographs and nearly 500 slides that capture the city’s essence—from Montmartre, to the banks of the Seine, to its gardens and parks. Kertesz edited these photographs into book form, but the work was set aside and was only recently rediscovered in his archives, twenty-five years after his death. This volume is the first publication of the never- before-seen manuscript put together by Kertész in 1963 during his return to Paris, where he observed the city with fresh eyes more than twenty years after he had moved away. The previously unpublished material is reproduced here as he originally intended, and completed with archival documents and a critical essay.