Self-Portrait, Wounded, with Officer
January 1916
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 5.2 x 3.8 cm (2 1/16 x 1 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
2000.170.4
Art Historical Context
In the midst of World War I's brutal Eastern Front, Hungarian photographer André Kertész captured a poignant moment of vulnerability in *Self-Portrait, W, with Officer* in 1916. Serving in the Austro-Hungarian, Kertész had been gravely injured by a bayonet just months earlier, and this intimate gelatin silver print—measuring a mere 5.2 x 3.8 cm—depicts bandaged and seated beside a fellow officer. The tiny scale evokes a personal snapshot, likely taken with a hand-held camera during his recovery, offering a raw glimpse into the human cost of the conflict far from glorified battle scenes. Kerté...
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...