Andre Kertesz

Andre Kertesz was a Hungarian born photographer whose work in Paris and later New York helped establish photojournalism and the modernist photographic essay as an art form. His early Paris work captured everyday street scenes and the city's artistic community with an unconventional, intimate framing that influenced photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson. In the 1930s he produced his celebrated Distortions series, using a fairground mirror to bend the nude body into abstract, elongated forms, and throughout his career he continued to experiment with perspective, reflection and geometry in otherwise ordinary scenes. Kertesz worked for decades in relative obscurity in the United States before receiving wide recognition late in life as one of the pioneers of twentieth century photography.