Self-Portrait at Front
c. 1915-1916
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 6 x 8.9 cm (2 3/8 x 3 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation
Accession Number
2000.170.3
Art Historical Context
André Kertész's *Self-Portrait at Front* (c. 1915-1916) captures a poignant moment from the artist's own experience during World War I. As a Hungarian photographer serving on the Eastern Front with the Austro-Hungarian army, Kertész turned his lens on himself amid the chaos of trench warfare. This intimate gelatin silver print, measuring just 6 x 8.9 cm, reflects the modest, portable photography of the era, allowing soldiers like him to document personal realities far from the grandeur of official war imagery. The medium—gelatin silver print—was a hallmark of early 20th-century photography, p...
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...