{"id":3530,"date":"2025-05-19T11:58:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T11:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrekertesz-exhibition.capacenter.hu\/from-budapest-studios-to-paris-ateliers\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T11:34:33","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T11:34:33","slug":"from-budapest-studios-to-paris-ateliers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/andrekertesz-exhibition.capacenter.hu\/en\/from-budapest-studios-to-paris-ateliers\/","title":{"rendered":"From Budapest Studios to Paris Ateliers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz was thirty-one when he arrived in Paris in 1925 with great ambitions, some savings and a camera. At the time, artistic life happened in and near the Montparnasse Quartier, in its caf\u00e9s, cramped attic rooms, studios and small galleries. With Kert\u00e9sz, the \u00e9migr\u00e9s of the Budapest art scene\u2014painters, sculptors, puppeteers\u2014were joined by a self-confident photographer who was convinced that photography was an autonomous art and not inferior to any other branch of the visual arts. Kert\u00e9sz always had his camera with him, whether he was at some gathering in a studio, with the celebrating Futurists, at a table in Caf\u00e9 du D\u00f4me, or when he was wandering around the squares and parks of Paris. He made carte postale prints of his photos at this time, so that they could be easily circulated and initiate an active interaction. He used these small, signed prints as gifts, business cards and postcards, which he sent to his family back in Hungary, informing them about his life in Paris and his photographic achievements. In 1927, Au Sacre du Printemps, a gallery owned by Polish pianist and composer Jan Sliwinsky, presented an exhibition of his works, including several portraits (Tristan Tzara, Paul Derm\u00e9e, Mondrian, Seuphor, Mih\u00e1ly K\u00e1rolyi), as well as two tautly structured views of Budafok\u2014by way of a counterpoint, as it were, to the new path of photography he had started to follow. One of the photographs in the exhibition showed wire sculptures by the German artist, Hilda Daus, one of whose works Kert\u00e9sz would keep for the rest of his life. Along with the portraits, there were genre and street scenes from Paris, and what is perhaps still his best-known work, the iconic Chez Mondrian was also on view. Paul Derm\u00e9e\u2019s programmatic poem about Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz was read out at the opening, which aptly and acutely identified his place and role in photography. Also recited was a surrealist poem by Attila J\u00f3zsef, who was in Paris at the time. The exhibition demonstrated Kert\u00e9sz\u2019s extensive network of connections, his familiarity with the Parisian avant-garde, which included the greats of art from Chagall to Brancusi, while female icons of the period also made regular appearances, among them the writer Colette, the model Kiki de Montparnasse, the photographer Berenice Abbott, and the fashion designer Coco Chanel. The exhibition brought him reputation, which in turn would secure him further opportunities. Soon his photographs were published in some of the most important European periodicals, such as Cahiers d\u2019Art, Die Dame, Art et Industrie and Das Illustrierte Blatt.<\/p>

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