New York

1933–1937

Books: “Enfants”, “Paris”, “Nos amies les bêtes”

His first personal book of photographs, Enfants, is published in 1933, and he publishes regularly in the following years: Paris (1934), dedicated to his brothers Imre and Jenő, Nos Amies les bêtes (“Our Friends the Animals”, 1936) and Les Cathédrales du vin (“The Cathedrals of Wine”, 1937).

1937

Five “Distortions” in the show “Photography 1839–1937”

Soon after his arrival he approaches Beaumont Newhall, director of the photographic department at the Museum of Modern Art, who is preparing a show entitled Photography 1839–1937; Kertész bristles at his criticism of the Distortions he offers, but Newhall exhibits five of the photographs.

1937

Leaves Keystone; commissions from Harper’s Bazaar and Life

The Keystone agency, owned by Ernie Prince, required him to stay in the company’s studio; frustrated, Kertész leaves when Prince leaves the company in 1937, is commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar for an article on the Saks Fifth Avenue department store in its April 1937 issue, takes commissions from Town and Country to supplement his income, and declines an invitation to work for Vogue as inappropriate work. He later chooses Life, but the magazine refuses to publish the unauthorized photographs of the whole harbour he made instead of just tugboats, and Kertész resents the constraints on his curiosity.

December 1937

His first solo show in New York

In December 1937 Kertész has his first solo show in New York, at the PM Gallery.

25 October 1938

Look credits his photographs to someone else

Look prints a series of Kertész photographs entitled A Fireman Goes to School but credits them mistakenly to Ernie Prince, his former boss; infuriated, Kertész considers never working with photo magazines again.

1941

Designated enemy aliens

Because of the war the Kertész couple are designated enemy aliens (Hungary is fighting on the side of the Axis powers); he is not permitted to photograph outdoors or to have any project related to national security. Trying to avoid trouble, since Elizabeth has started a cosmetics company, Cosmia Laboratories, he ceases commissioned work and essentially disappears from the photographic world for three years.