1894. 2 July He was born into a Jewish family in Budapest. His mother, Ernesztin Hoffmann (1863–1933) ran a coffee shop on Teleki Square, his father, Lipót Kertész (ca. 1842–1909) was a bookseller and smallholder.

1912 He graduated from grammar school and received his first camera. He started
working at the Budapest Commodity and Stock Exchange.

1914. 5 October He was conscripted into the army of Austria-Hungary.

1915. January He contracted typhoid fever and was hospitalized until the end of March. In April he went to Esztergom, from where he left by train for the Russian front in June. In late August, in Galícia, he was shot in the chest, which left his left arm temporarily paralysed. He was convalescing in Budapest and Esztergom.

1916–1918 Following his recovery, he continued to serve in the army as a financial clerk. He travelled extensively in the countries of the Dual Monarchy, as well as in the Balkans, and took photographs everywhere. His photos began to be published in Borsszem Jankó and Érdekes Újság.

1919 He spent a lot of time in Szigetbecse and Dunaharaszti. He found employment at Budapesti Giro- és Pénztáregylet, a financial institution, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Salamon.

1925 He emigrated to Paris, where he soon found his way around the artistic milieu of Montparnasse and Café du Dôme. He took portraits of such important figures of the Parisian avant-garde as Tristan Tzara, Piet Mondrian and Marc Chagall.

1927 He had a solo exhibition at Au Sacre du Printemps, the Paris gallery of Jan
Sliwinsky.

1928 He purchased his first Leica camera and was commissioned by Vu magazine.
He married Rózsi Klein, a Hungarian painter and photographer. Their short-lived
marriage ended with divorce in 1932.

1929 He had exhibitions in Stuttgart and Essen.

1930–1936 Worked for Art et médecine, the magazine that also employed Brassaï and Man Ray.

1932 He had 35 photos at Modern European Photography, an exhibition of the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.

1933 On a commission from Le Sourire magazine, he created Distortions, a series of nudes with avant-garde and surrealist traits. He married Elizabeth Salamon; his mother died.

1934 His album, Paris vu par André Kertész (Paris through the Eyes of André Kertész), was published. Commissioned by György Bölöni, he took photos of poet Endre Ady’s iconic Paris locations, which were published in the volume, Az igazi Ady (The Real Ady).

1934. November – 1935. January He visited Hungary with his wife. During his time in Budapest, he photographed intensively, in spas, at Café Japán, at family gatherings, at openings and on the streets of the capital.

October 1936 At the invitation of the Keystone agency, he and his wife left Paris and settled down in New York. He entrusted much of his archives, including the negatives of his Hungarian period, to Jacqueline Paouillac. In the years that followed, the escalation of the war and the persecution of the Jews prevented them from returning to Europe.

1937–1949 He worked as a freelance photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Town & Country, Collier’s, Coronet and Look.

1941 As a foreigner, he could not work freely as a photographer. The Museum of Modern Art in New York was the first American institution to purchase a photograph from him.

1944 He was granted US citizenship.

1945 His Day of Paris, a book designed by Alexey Brodovitch, was published.

1946 Solo exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute.

1948 He visited Hungary and met his brother Imre.

1949–1962 Exclusive contract with Condé Nast Publishing.

1952 He and his wife moved into a twelfth-floor flat on 5th Avenue in Greenwich Village, which would be their home for the rest of their lives, as well as a source of subjects.

1958 The couple purchased a country house in Newtown, Connecticut.

1963 He won a gold medal at the 4th Venice Photography Biennale. He had a solo exhibition at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. After 27 years, his negatives, which had been stored in the shelter of a castle in the south of France, were returned to him.

1964 Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

1965–1976 Exhibitions in Tokyo, Stockholm, Budapest, London and Helsinki.

1974 He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship.

1975 He was a guest of honour at the Rencontres Internationales de Photographie festival in Arles.

1977. October His wife, Elizabeth Salamon died.

Between 1979 and 1981 , as part of his grief work, he took Polaroid photos in memory of her.

1984 He gifted his archives, negatives and transparencies to the French state. He visited Budapest as a guest of honour of the Spring Festival, and had an exhibition in Vigadó Gallery.

1985 He gifted 120 original, signed photographs to Szigetbecse, along with the exclusive Hungarian publishing rights of Our Animal Friends, which was first published in Paris in 1936 as Nos amis les bêtes.

28 September He died in his New York home, aged ninety-one.

1987. 30 May The André Kertész Memorial Museum opened in Szigetbecse.