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
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...