Three Exhibitions to Honor the 130th Birthday of Photographer André Kertész

André Kertész in 1984.

The Hungarian National Museum is organizing a series of exhibitions to mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of André Kertész (1894-1985), the world-famous Hungarian-born photographer, between March 23 and September 22 in Esztergom (northern Hungary) and two venues in Budapest.

A selection of Kertész’s photographs purchased from New York in 2021 will be on display, allowing the public to see never-before-seen photographs at the Balassa Museum in Esztergom, the Hungarian National Museum, and the Robert Capa Center in Budapest.

After his emigration to Paris in 1925, André Kertész returned to Hungary several times and opened numerous exhibitions, where he liked to recall his youthful memories. In Szigetbecse (Pest County), a memorial museum  also opened that bears his name, using the pictures he donated to Hungary shortly before his death.

This time, the focus of the Hungarian National Museum’s exhibition series is not on the “reminiscing artist,” but on the young man born in Budapest on July 2, 1894, who spent much of his childhood in Teleki Square and later in Népszínház Street (Budapest), and spent much time with his relatives in Szigetbecse and Tiszaszalka (eastern Hungary), traveling as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then moving to Paris at the age of 31.

The museum’s series of exhibitions aims to give visitors an insight into the background of this departure.

The 2021 sale of the André Kertész photograph collection included a total of 1,163 images taken before 1925, including 943 contact prints, 59 large-scale vintage prints, 151 Polaroids, nine personal photographs and one collage. Following the purchase, the Hungarian National Museum carried out a condition survey of the photographs and the material was registered by Éva Fisli, historian and museologist at the Historical Photo Department. Over the past decade, the museologist has had several opportunities to research the Kertész archive in France, and the material found there has helped to clarify inaccuracies about the photographer’s youth. This is what Fisli has undertaken as curator of the exhibition.

The first two exhibitions will show early vintage prints. Some of these extraordinary tiny images have been exhibited before, but the richness of Kertész’s early years in Hungary has never been presented in this way.

Visitors will also be able to see the early copies in their original state, with the help of contemporary enlargements and projections.

The exhibition “André Kertész in Esztergom” will be on display from March 23rd in Esztergom’s newest exhibition space, the Balassa Museum, an affiliate of the Hungarian National Museum, until June 23rd. From June 22nd to September 22nd, a selection of rare images by the young Kertész will be on display at the Hungarian National Museum, under the title “Kertész/Copies,” and finally, from July 2nd, the public will be able to see Polaroids of the elder Kertész at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center.

Via MTI, Featured image: Fortepan / Szalay Zoltán