Self-Portrait with Jeno Kertész
July 4, 1920
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 3.9 x 5.2 cm (1 9/16 x 2 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation
Accession Number
2000.170.17
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
In this intimate *Self-Portrait with Jenoertész*, Hungarian-born photographer André Kert captures a tender moment with his brother Jenő on July 4, 1920. Printed as a tiny gelatin silver print—measuring just 3.9 x 5.2 cm—this snapshot-like image exemplifies Kertész's early experimentation with photography as a personal, poetic medium. Gelatin silver prints, a hallmark of early 20th photography, allowed for sharp detail and rich tonal range from a glass-plate negative, making this work a preserved slice of private life amid post-World War I Europe. Kertész, who would later pioneer modernist pho...
About the Artist
André Kertész
André Kertész, born Andor Kertész on July 2, 1894, in Budapest, Hungary, to a middle-class Jewish family, initially pursued a conventional path as a clerk at the Budapest Stock Exchange after graduating from the Academy of Commerce in 1912. Self-taught in photography after purchasing his first camera that year, he captured his early poetic visions of Hungarian landscapes and peasant life, includin...