Portal:The arts/Featured biography/March, 2009

André Kertész (2 July 1894 – 28 September 1985), born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and by his efforts in establishing and developing the photo essay. In the early years of his lengthy career, his then-unorthodox camera angles, and his unwillingness to compromise his personal photographic style, prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Even towards the end of his life, Kertész did not feel he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. He is recognized today as one of the seminal figures of photojournalism, if not photography as a whole.

Expected by his family to work as a stockbroker, Kertész was a photographic autodidact and his early work was mostly published in magazines. This continued until much later in his life when he stopped accepting commissions. He served briefly in World War I and moved to Paris in 1925, against the wishes of his family. There he was involved in the artistic melting pot of immigrants and the Dada movement, and achieved critical and commercial success. The imminent threat of World War II pushed him to emigrate again to the United States, where he had a more difficult life and needed to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. He took offense with several editors, who he felt did not recognize his work. In the 1940s and 1950s he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. Despite the numerous awards he collected over the years, he still felt unrecognized, a sentiment which did not change even at the time of his death. His career is generally divided into four periods based on where his work was most prominent at these times. They are called the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, towards the end of his life, the International period.