“ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURY’S MOST PROLIFIC, INFLUENTIAL AND LYRIC ARTISTS OF THE CAMERA”: KERTÉSZ’ MAGYARORSZÁGON

KERTÉSZ, André. Magyarországon. Budapest: FöFoto, (1984). Quarto, original blue paper boards, original photographic dust jacket. $650.

First edition of this monograph published in Budapest on the occasion of the Hungarian photographer’s return to his homeland on his 90th birthday, with 50 full-page duotones.

“One of the most influential photographers of this century… Andre Kertész is widely acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s most prolific, influential and lyric artists of the camera.” This scarce first edition of Magyarországon, published in Budapest on the occasion of Kertész’ 90th birthday, contains 50 full-page duotones and numerous in-text images celebrating the Hungarian-born photographer’s return to his homeland. Kertész had left Budapest for Paris in the mid-1920s for a career in Paris, where, with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Kertész “developed a small-camera street-photography vocabulary that pervaded journalistic documentary photography” (Parr & Badger I:120). Including an interview with Jonas Bodnár, essays by Bodnár, Somlyó György, Barcsay Jenö and many more. Text in French and Hungarian. Original bellyband laid in. See Roth, 114; Open Book 138.

A fine copy.