Picture of Persistence: André Kertész’s Long Search for Recognition

‘Everything is a Photograph: A Life of André Kertész’By Patricia AlbersOther Books, 560 PagesHailed as one of the great photographers when he died at 91, André Kertész (1894-1985) spent much of his life grousing that he got no respect. That should make him a rather tiresome biographical subject, but just the opposite is true. So exaggerated were Kertész’s complaints that they often seemed comical, or just a foible in a man of considerable charm, openness, and generosity to those who sought his advice and assistance.Although Kertész received some family support, no one seems to have believed that he would one day become famous and saluted as the master of a new artistic medium. Photography, until late in Kertész’s life, was not widely considered an art by most critics, gallery owners, and museums. He often had to make do with hack work for mass circulation magazines to support himself.What made Kertész so singular is that he just kept at his art no matter the circumstances, including service in the Hungarian army during World War I, carrying along his photographic equipment into several battlefields that could have cost him his life. It seems he was never without a camera. He took pictures of everything. He professed to no artistic program, no theory of his art, no allegiance with a movement.Kertész rejected aestheticizing what he did, even though others saw great art in his compositions, the way he developed his photographs, and in his eye for finding the value in his subjects. What mattered to him was to see through the camera, and to make it his language of engagement with the world.And a good thing too, since Kertész had no gift for the spoken word — not even his native Hungarian. He spoke what one observer called “desperado French.” His English never got any better even after decades in the United States, where he became a citizen of the country he loathed, which had demeaned him by forcing him into commercial photography. Patricia Albers never looks away from her subject’s mean side, his stubborn conviction that the world had done him wrong. Even those who touted his work, got him solo shows, came in for a share of his vituperation. To treat such an edgy subject, a biographer has to have an exquisite sense of balance, shifting between accounts of bad behavior and beautifully composed works of art, and Patricia Albers is exemplary in her ability to do so.I never lost interest or faith in André Kertész because Ms. Albers understands him and shows why it is worth sticking with him. He is gallant, undaunted, and amusingly self-promoting, taking the truth of a story and exaggerating it, making it more dramatic, more to his credit that he survived and triumphed.Kertész never admitted that he was a bigamist, leaving behind him in Europe a spouse who simply did not fit the narrative of himself that he was determined to impress upon the world. Ms. Albers supposes that not even his second wife, Erzsébet, knew that her husband had not bothered to obtain a divorce. What might seem cruel in Kertész is mitigated by his devotion to Erzsébet, even after her death. I came away supposing that he did not want to disturb the mythology of a life his wife had become part of, as she helped to negotiate his contracts and make sure he received the recognition he deserved.Kertész’s fame came late in life as he was discovered by important museum directors and gallery owners, and he made the most of it while continuing to do great work. He loved to shoot women in the nude, and they seemed obliging, as if it was natural to want to partake in his vision of them and the world.As Ms. Albers shows, Kertész never stopped adapting to the new technology of cameras and color, taking many Polaroids, for example, even though like many photographers of his generation he started out declaring that only black-and-white work could attain the status of high art. No matter how ill, how shaky his hands became, Kertész kept photographing until he dropped dead, right in the midst of planning another big trip to show the world just what he could do.Mr. Rollyson’s writing on photography is included in “Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon,” co-authored with his second wife, Lisa Paddock.

Picture of Persistence: André Kertész’s Long Search for Recognition

Picture of Persistence: André Kertész’s Long Search for Recognition

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