André Kertész 1894-1985

on the original full vellum mount, signed and dated by the photographer and numbered '456' in an unidentified hand in pencil on the mount, credited and titled in an unidentified hand in pencil and numbered in unidentified hands in pencil and red crayon on the reverse, matted, 1928

Graphics International, Ltd., Washington, D.C.

Acquired by the Gilman Paper Company from the above, 1977

‘Nature Morte III’ belongs to a small group of domestic still life studies, all taken by Kertész in the mid-1920s, that transfuse the ordinary objects of daily life with both poetry and mystery.  The image offered here relates compositionally to the well-known ‘Fork’ of 1928, and is evidence of the photographer’s transforming and inventive eye. In one of the earliest critical assessments of Kertész’s work, a review of the First Independent Salon of Photography in Paris in 1928, Florent Fels described Kertész as ‘un prestigieux créateur de poèmes, et ses métaphores sont d’humbles objets’ (L’Art vivant, Volume 4, Number 90, 1 June 1928, p. 417). 

The image offered here is closely related to another study of a spoon and a bowl of three sugar cubes captioned ‘Étude de Matière’ that was illustrated in a later issue of L’Art vivant, to accompany an article by Jean Galotti.  The double-page spread of Kertész photographs used in that article is reproduced in Sandra Phillips’s ‘André Kertész: The Years in Paris,’ in André Kertész: Of Paris and New York (Chicago, 1985), fig. 27, p. 137.  The article by Galotti was one of a series of articles in L’Art vivant in which photographers were asked for their thoughts on the recurring question, ‘La Photographie est-elle un art?’  Throughout the interview, Kertész seems reluctant to indulge in theory, answering in sentences that are as deceptively simple and as elusive as his best photographs:

‘Si on lui demande pourquoi il s’est fait photographe, il répond que c’est parce qu’il aime faire de la photographie.

‘Si on le prie d’exposer ses idées, il s’excuse de ne pas en avoir le talent.

‘Si, enfin, on le presse, pour obtenir un mot qui nous éclaire sur sa facon de concevoir son art, il dit seulement, et, c’est beaucoup: “La photographie doit être réaliste.”’

Pressed by Galotti to come to some conclusion regarding the age-old photography versus art debate, Kertész answers, ‘”La photographie est une chose, la peinture une chose, mais ce n’est pas la même chose”’ (L’Art vivant, Volume 5, Number 101, 1 March 1929, p. 211).

The photograph offered here was quite possibly exhibited during Kertész’s years in Paris: its finished quality, presented as it is on a vellum mount, and signed and dated by the photographer on the mount, is characteristic of his exhibition prints.  It is numbered ‘456’ on the front and the back of mount in hands identical to the hands that numbered ‘454’ on the photograph ‘Les Mains et des Livres’ of Lot 31, an image with an extensive exhibition history, and in the case of the print offered in Lot 31, one with an exhibition label on the reverse of its mount.

At the time of this writing, no other prints of the present ‘Nature Morte III’ have been located.