Title: Distortions
Author: Andre Kertesz - André Kertész, born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism.

Expected by his family to work as a stock broker, Kertész pursued photography independently as an autodidact, and his early work was published primarily in magazines, a major market in those years. This continued until much later in his life, when Kertész stopped accepting commissions. He served briefly in World War I and moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family. In Paris he worked for France's first illustrated magazine called VU. Involved with many young immigrant artists and the Dada movement, he achieved critical and commercial success.

Due to German persecution of the Jews and the threat of World War II, Kertész decided to emigrate to the United States in 1936, where he had to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. In the 1940s and 1950s, he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. His career is generally divided into four periods, based on where he was working and his work was most prominently known. They are called the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, toward the end of his life, the International period.



, Hilton Kramer
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
City: New York
Year: 1976
Printing Information: First Edition
Binding Style: Hardcover
Width: 9" Height: 11.5"
Book Details: From the front flap of the dust jacket:

"Distortions is the great surrealist series that created a sensation on its first showing in 1932 in Paris. Earlier that year Kertesz ahd been asked by the French magazine Le Sourire to created a series of images of women and, out of the dreamlike "distortions" he had perceived as a young man watching swimmers move through the water, these pictures evolved. Four years later a number of them were exhibited in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, and again caused a furor.

"Over the years, the glass-plate negatives became so oxidized that no major laboratory in Europe or the United States was willing to clean them for fear of destroying the images in the process. Finally, one man -- the grandson of the renowned German photographer August Sander -- discovered a way of completely removing the oxidation without damaging the plates."
Condition / Notes: This volume represents a stated first edition of this work. It is housed in the original dust jacket, showing light shelfwear and a price of 22.50 on the front flap. This book is bound in well-preserved gray cloth with stamped gilt lettering on the spine. The binding is sound. The pages are clean and bright, with the 120 images unblemished. An introduction by Hilton Kramer precedes the images.

For lots which include only books, our shipping charge applies to any address within the fifty United States. For lots which are not books, the stated shipping cost in this listing will apply only to addresses within the continental 48 states. Within those parameters, the shipping cost for this lot will be: $6.50