LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  PHOTOGRAPHS PART I  / 

17

ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ (American, b. Hungary, 1894-1985) RUE VAVIN, PARIS titled, signed and dated

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:60,000.00 - 80,000.00 USD
ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ (American, b. Hungary, 1894-1985) RUE VAVIN, PARIS titled, signed and dated
ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ (American, b. Hungary, 1894-1985) RUE VAVIN, PARIS titled, signed and dated "Paris, 1925, A. Kertész" in pencil on verso artist's stamp on verso vintage gelatin silver print 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (34.3 x 27.3 cm) 1925 PROVENANCE From the Estate to a Private Collector LITERATURE André Kertész, DAY OF PARIS, New York, 1945, p. 24 (illustrated) ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: MUNKÁSSÁGA, Budapest, 1972, pl. 26 (illustrated) Nicolas Ducrot, ed., ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: SIXTY YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, New York, 1972/1978, p. 126 (illustrated) ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, Millerton, New York, 1977, p. 31 (illustrated) André Kertész, KERTÉSZ ON KERTÉSZ: A SELF-PORTRAIT, New York, 1985, p. 40 (illustrated) ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, Paris, Photo Poche no. 17, 1985, pl. 14 (illustrated) Sandra Phillips, David Travis & Weston Naef, ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: OF PARIS AND NEW YORK, New York, 1985, fig. 1, p. 18 (illustrated) UN AUTORITRATTO: ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, Udine, 1989, p. 51 (illustrated) IN FOCUS: ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, Malibu, 1994, pp. 24-25, pl. 8 (illustrated) In the late summer of 1925, André Kertész left his native Hungary and traveled to France, determined to make a name for himself as a photographer. When he arrived in Paris in September, Kertész registered at a small hotel on the rue Vavin and quickly began to shoot his new surroundings. Kertész has claimed that the present work was the first photograph he made in Paris. The picture was taken from his hotel window and depicts the façade of a building across the street. Fittingly, the present work announces a trademark quality of Kertész's mature photography. Rather than create a frontal image of the neighboring building, the artist adopted an oblique viewpoint. Kertész associated straightforward, planar compositions with dry, documentary photography. By shooting his subjects from unexpected angles, he wished to express a highly personal awareness of his surroundings. As Carole Kismaric has explained, "Kertész had intuitively grasped that the camera could be used in direct response to how he felt about the world. In Paris he was able to give reign to his intellectual, even analytical and self-conscious sense of form. In the same way as he had roamed the Budapest countryside, he stalked the streets of Paris. He pointed his camera everywhere: upwards across rooftops, into windows, taking in entire façades or selecting out small details; downwards onto sidewalks speckled with people working themselves into patterns, merging with cement curbs, cobblestones, edges of trees, and slices of buildings. Vantage point became very important. And each time he made a picture he learned a bit more about the city that was now his home" (Carole Kismaric, ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ, New York: Aperture, Inc., 1977, p. 6). Indeed, the present work captures the inquisitive spirit of Kertész's first days in Paris. Here one views a series of windows arranged in a grid. While some of the windows are shuttered, others reveal a patterned curtain, a bouquet of flowers, and a daydreaming young woman. This wide range of subjects - cleverly framed as smaller pictures within the photograph - anticipates the breadth of Kertész's future work as he embarked on a visual exploration of an unfamiliar city.
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