André Kertész 1894-1985

mounted, signed and inscribed 'Paris' by the photographer in pencil on the mount, numbered by him in pencil and with his '31 Union Sq., N. Y. C. 3' studio stamp on the reverse, matted, 1925

Acquired by the Gilman Paper Company from the photographer, 1977

Other prints of this image:

Sandra S. Phillips, David Travis, and Weston J. Naef, André Kertész: Of Paris and New York (The Art Institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), cat. no. 3, p. 129

Stranger to Paris: Photographs by André Kertész (1894-1985) (Toronto: Jane Corkin Gallery, 1992), p. 61

Nicolas Ducrot, ed., J'aime Paris: Photographs Since the Twenties (New York, 1974), p. 154

André Kertész and Avant Garde Photography of the Twenties and Thirties (London: Annely Juda Fine Art, 1999), pl. 39

When the Gilman Paper Company acquired this well-known image by Kertész in 1977, they were told by the photographer that this print was the actual print of the image included in his pioneering exhibition at the Au Sacre du Printemps gallery in Paris in 1927.  In terms of size, this print does seem to correspond to the size of the print used in that exhibition: a photograph of the 1927 exhibition, showing the wall on which this image hangs, is reproduced in a number of volumes, including André Kertész: Of Paris and New York, p. 34, fig. 24, and the National Gallery of Art’s recent André Kertész (Washington, D. C., and Princeton, 2005), fig. 14, p. 70.  The present print, on an old mount that has been removed from another, probably larger, mount, is signed and dated by the photographer on the mount, another indication that the photograph was likely used in an exhibition.  Beyond that, Kertész’s claim is impossible to confirm or deny.

The 1927 Au Sacre du Printemps show was an early and important landmark in Kertész’s career.   His first one-man retrospective exhibition, the show displayed for the first time, in one setting, a remarkable number of images that are now identified with the photographer’s most significant European work: his ‘Chez Mondrian,’ ‘Mondrian’s Pipe and Glasses,’ the ‘Studio Cat’, the ‘Chairs, Medici Fountain’, ‘Quartet,’ and the image offered here, among others.       

Sandra Phillips notes that the present image was made one evening after a rain, when Kertész returned to his apartment near the Hotel de Ville, after seeing friends at the Café du Dome (Of Paris and New York, cat. no. 3).   The mystery and moods of Paris at night would be tackled by several photographers in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably by another Hungarian ex-patriate, Brassaï, who is known to have accompanied Kertész on nocturnal walks in Paris as early as 1926.