Self-Portrait as Woman
early 1920s
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 3.8 x 5.4 cm (1 1/2 x 2 1/8 in.) sheet: 3.9 x 5.5 cm (1 9/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation
Accession Number
1999.122.17
Art Historical Context
In the early 1920s, Hungarian photographer André Kertész created this whimsical *Self-Portrait as Woman a tiny gelatin silver print measuring just 3.8 x 5.4 cm. Captured during the formative years of his career—before his move to Paris in 1925—this intimate image showcases Kertész's playful with identity and self-representation. Dressed in feminine attire, he gazes coyly at the camera, blending humor with the era's emerging modernist spirit in photography. Kertész, a pioneer of 20th-century photography, was known for his innovative use of unusual angles, distortions, and everyday subjects, in...
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...