Andre Kertesz (Masters of Photography, Band 11)

"I write with light", Andre Kertesz once said of his work. In one of the medium's longest, most productive careers, he created a vast and lyric narrative that shaped the history of photography. The first proponent of the small-format 35-millimeter camera, Kertesz created stunning images of everyday moments, memories, and scenes. His role in the art world was marked by periods of rapturous acclaim and times of regrettable neglect. In pre-World War II Paris, he was recognized as a pioneer in the medium and a celebrated member of a milieu that included Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, and Tristan Tzara. Subsequently, he was known as the inspiration to a generation of photographers, including Man Ray, Brassai, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Berenice Abbott. In later years, however, he endured long periods of obscurity. It was not until the early 1960s that a subsequent generation began to look anew and recognize Kertesz's genius. Through more than sixty years of photographing, he worked without pretense, using the camera to question, to record, and to preserve his relationships to the world and to his art. Collected here are the finest images from his life's work.