Self-Portrait
1927
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 15.4 x 14.6 cm (6 1/16 x 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon and Patrons' Permanent Fund
Accession Number
2006.133.87
Art Historical Context
André Kertész's *Self-Portrait* (7) offers an intimate glimpse into the mind of one of the 20th century's pioneering photographers. Born in Hungary and active in Paris during the vibrant interwar years, Kertész captured everyday life with a poetic eye, bridging traditional and modernist visions. This small-scale gelatin silver print—measuring just 15. x 14.6 cm—invites viewers close, emphasizing the personal nature of self-reflection in an era when photography was evolving from documentation to artistic expression. The gelatin silver process, a hallmark of early 20th-century black-and-white 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...