Jeno Kertész

early 1920s

Tries farming and beekeeping

He leaves the exchange to try agricultural work and beekeeping, but the venture is brief given the political turmoil that accompanies the revolution and the coming of communism. Back at the exchange he decides to emigrate to study at one of France’s photographic schools, but his mother dissuades him, and he does not leave for several years.

1923

Turns down a silver medal over the bromoil process

The Hungarian Amateur Photographer’s Association selects one of his photographs for its silver award on condition that he print it by the bromoil process; Kertész dislikes this, turns down the medal and is given a diploma from the association instead.

26 June 1925

A photograph on the cover of Érdekes Újság

The Hungarian news magazine Érdekes Újság uses one of his photographs for its cover, giving him widespread publicity; by that time he is determined to photograph the sights of Paris and join its artistic culture.

September 1925

Moves to Paris against his family’s wishes

He leaves for Paris, then the artistic capital of the world, against his family’s wishes, leaving behind his mother, his unofficial fiancée Elizabeth, both brothers and his uncle Hoffmann, who dies shortly afterward; Jenő later emigrates to Argentina. Soon after arriving he changes his first name from Andor to André, which he keeps for the rest of his life; at first he takes commissions from several European magazines, in Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, and then works for VU, France’s first illustrated magazine.

1925–1936

The circle of Hungarian émigrés and portraits of friends

In Paris he is among numerous Hungarian artists, including François Kollar, Robert Capa, Emeric Fehér, Brassaï and Julia Bathory, as well as Man Ray, Germaine Krull and Lucien Aigner, who also emigrated there, and becomes involved with the Dada movement; visiting his sculptor friends, he is fascinated by Cubism. He makes photo portraits of the painters Piet Mondrian and Marc Chagall, the writer Colette and the film-maker Sergei Eisenstein.