Pronounce the artist’s name: Ker – tezh’
Les Halles was the central marketplace in Paris for nearly 700 years. This photograph, taken at that market before its 1971 demolition, shows a cart wheel and axle and the shadows they cast.
Kertész’s use of a small camera allowed him to move quickly and inconspicuously amid the subjects that attracted him. Here he has chosen an unusual point of view: he seems to be on the ground, photographing the wheel, the underside of the cart, and the shadows on the pavement. This work reveals Kertész’s interest in cropping his pictures to isolate simple elements, and in emphasizing abstract patterns and the contrasts of light and dark areas.
Kertész began his career in photography using a large box camera on a tripod. He was one of the first serious photographers to work with a 35mm camera, and after 1928 he used it almost exclusively. The smaller camera gave him greater flexibility, because he did not have to use a tripod and because the camera used roll film rather than single-sheet negatives. In describing his work, Kertesz said:
The moment always dictates in my work. What I feel, I do. This is the most important thing for me. Everybody can look, but they don’t necessarily see. I never calculate or consider; I see a situation and I know that it’s right, even if I have to go back to get the proper lighting.
André Kertész, one of the most innovative photographers of the twentieth century, was born in Budapest, Hungary. Kertész was one of the first photojournalists, building an outstanding reputation while working for major publications in Europe. Because of the political changes in Europe in the 1930s, he moved to the United States and became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1944.
Kertész wrote, “Photography must be realistic.” The thousands of photographs taken during his seventy-three-year career reveal how diverse reality was for Kertész. There are realities that he discovered and realities of invention: journalist’s dreams of Budapest, Paris, and New York; nudes reflected in a distorting fun-house mirror; and still-life arrangements photographed in his apartment.
